CHAPTER 9: Enzyme-responsive Drug Delivery Systems

One major challenge in the pharmaceutical industry is how to deliver drugs locally and specifically to a target area. One way to accomplish this is to develop drug delivery vehicles that respond to biomarkers or other cues that are indicative of a disease state. Over the past several years, enzymes have become key targets for bio-recognition due to their role in both healthy and diseased tissues. This has led to the development of drug delivery vehicles that release their cargo via either carrier degradation, shape change, or bond cleavage due to enzymes over-expressed at the disease site. This chapter will focus on the use of both oxidoreductases and hydrolases as triggers for enzyme-responsive drug delivery systems.