This novel form of drug targeting developed by our research group, deals with the chemotactic (chemoattractant or chemorepellent) moiety of a ligand. The figure below describes the theoretical scheme and the practical approaches of chemotactic drug-targeting (CDT).
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Specificity of targeting is highly dependent on the biological/chemical character of the composing elements of the complex: (i) target cell specific chemotactic activity, (ii) varying ability of the conjugates to internalize the cells or (iii) to deliver the drug into compartments provide high significance of the novel technique in drug-targeting.
Chemotactic or other cell-physiological responses (cell adhesion, phagocytosis. proliferation etc.) elicited, depends on composition of substances constructed for CDT. Over chemotactic character of the identical ligands, physicochemical moieties of the carrier molecule and biological character of the specer all influences the effectivity of the newly synthesized conjugates.
In our model-experiment we gain data for optimalization of biological potencies of the drug-carrier-ligand complex. Figure below shows improved chemotactic effect of Methotrexate-Oligotuftsin-fMLF conjugate in THP-1 human leukemic monocytes.
