{"title":"Mitochondrial-targeted drug and DNA delivery.","authors":"Volkmar Weissig","doi":"10.1615/critrevtherdrugcarriersyst.v20.i1.10","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The field of mitochondrial research is currently among the fastest growing disciplines in biomedicine. Approximately 12,000 articles on mitochondria have been published since the beginning of the new millennium. What brings mitochondria into the limelight of the scientific community? Since the end of the 1980s, a series of key discoveries has been made that have rekindled the scientific interest in this long-known cell organelle. It has become increasingly evident that mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to a variety of human disorders, ranging from neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, obesity, and diabetes to ischemia-reperfusion injury and cancer. Moreover, since the middle of the 1990s, mitochondria, the \"power houses\" of the cell, have also become accepted as the cells' \"arsenal,\" reflecting their increasingly acknowledged key role during apoptosis. Based on these recent developments in mitochondrial research, increased pharmacological and pharmaceutical efforts have lead to the emergence of mitochondrial medicine\" as a new field of biomedical research. Targeting of biologically active molecules to mitochondria in living cells will open avenues for manipulating mitochondrial functions, which may result in the selective protection, repair, or eradication of cells. This review gives a comprehensive overview of current strategies of mitochondrial targeting and their possible therapeutic applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":50614,"journal":{"name":"Critical Reviews in Therapeutic Drug Carrier Systems","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2003-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"52","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Reviews in Therapeutic Drug Carrier Systems","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1615/critrevtherdrugcarriersyst.v20.i1.10","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PHARMACOLOGY & PHARMACY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 52
Abstract
The field of mitochondrial research is currently among the fastest growing disciplines in biomedicine. Approximately 12,000 articles on mitochondria have been published since the beginning of the new millennium. What brings mitochondria into the limelight of the scientific community? Since the end of the 1980s, a series of key discoveries has been made that have rekindled the scientific interest in this long-known cell organelle. It has become increasingly evident that mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to a variety of human disorders, ranging from neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, obesity, and diabetes to ischemia-reperfusion injury and cancer. Moreover, since the middle of the 1990s, mitochondria, the "power houses" of the cell, have also become accepted as the cells' "arsenal," reflecting their increasingly acknowledged key role during apoptosis. Based on these recent developments in mitochondrial research, increased pharmacological and pharmaceutical efforts have lead to the emergence of mitochondrial medicine" as a new field of biomedical research. Targeting of biologically active molecules to mitochondria in living cells will open avenues for manipulating mitochondrial functions, which may result in the selective protection, repair, or eradication of cells. This review gives a comprehensive overview of current strategies of mitochondrial targeting and their possible therapeutic applications.
期刊介绍:
Therapeutic uses of a variety of drug carrier systems have significant impact on the treatment and potential cure of many chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes mellitus, psoriasis, parkinsons, Alzheimer, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV infection, infectious diseases, asthma, and drug addiction. Scientific efforts in these areas are multidisciplinary, involving the physical, biological, medical, pharmaceutical, biological materials, and engineering fields.
Articles concerning this field appear in a wide variety of journals. With the vast increase in the number of articles and the tendency to fragment science, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep abreast of the literature and to sort out and evaluate the importance and reliability of the data, especially when proprietary considerations are involved. Abstracts and noncritical articles often do not provide a sufficiently reliable basis for proper assessment of a given field without the additional perusal of the original literature. This journal bridges this gap by publishing authoritative, objective, comprehensive multidisciplinary critical review papers with emphasis on formulation and delivery systems. Both invited and contributed articles are subject to peer review.