超声纳米微泡在基因治疗中的应用进展

Progress of nanobubbles in gene therapy

作为对比增强超声的造影剂,已经被广泛应用至今。近年来,微泡不仅仅用于超声造影,还逐渐和治疗结合在一起,尤其是在药物及基因递送方面。但微泡的粒径较大,难以通过血管壁渗透到周围组织中,尤其是肿瘤组织。然而,粒径为纳米级的微泡,就有这种渗透的可能性。研究发现,纳米微泡的表面可以偶联许多特异性配体,例如单克隆抗体或者多肽。此外许多药物、基因等可以与纳米微泡结合,或者包裹在纳米微泡内部。本文以纳米微泡研究为背景,阐述微泡从对比增强的超声造影剂发展到一种基因递送媒介的演进历程及其发展前景。

Microbubbles,used to be the medium in contrast-enhanced ultrasonography,have experienced a long evolution. For the past few years,microbubbles have been combined with therapy,especially for drugs and gene delivery. Microbubbles provide an effective non-viral strategy for ultrasound mediated gene delivery. Microbubbles,due to their larger sizes,are unable to extravasate from blood vessels into the surrounding tissues,especially for tumor tissues. However,nanobubbles,with the size in the nanometer order of magnitude,allow the possibility of extravasation. To the best of our knowledge,the surface of nanobubbles are able to attach disease-specific ligands,such as monoclonal antibodies or peptides. Any kinds of medicine or siRNA are allowed to be integrated with nanobubbles,or to be encapsulated into nanobubbles. This overview provides a review of the evolution of microbubbles from an agent of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography to a promising medium of gene delivery systems,with a specific focus on recent research into the development of nanosystems.