Advanced molecularly imprinted polymers for disease treatment via targeting molecular abnormalities: Promises and challenges

Abstract

In human diseases, molecular abnormalities occur frequently and drive disease progression. Antibodies are effective targeted reagents to regulate molecular abnormalities and treat diseases. Despite antibodies have achieved great success, their high cost, low stability, and high immunogenicity limit their further application. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) which are chemically synthesized artificial antibodies, showed great potential for targeting molecular abnormalities and treating diseases with high affinity and specificity. Recently, many MIPs have emerged for enhanced therapeutic efficacy via targeting molecular abnormalities and there is still lack of a review to summarize these works. In this review, we will survey the recent progress of MIPs in diseases treatment via targeting molecular abnormalities. We first analyze factors determining MIPs recognition performance. Subsequently, we discuss MIPs applications in disease treatment via targeting molecular abnormalities, including abnormal signaling pathway inhibition, molecular abnormalities clearance and targeted drugs delivery. Finally, we outline challenges and further perspectives of MIPs.