Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica 2009;44(2):109-114

Folate receptor-mediated antitumor drugs.

Jie ZHAO 1 ; Sheng-Li CAO ; Xiao-Lin ZHENG ; Bo ZHAO

Affiliations

+expand

Country

China

Language

Chinese

MeSH

Abstract

Folate receptor (FR) is over-expressed in a variety of human cancers and it is seldom expressed or found in normal tissues. Therefore, folate receptor-mediated antitumor drugs can be targeted specially to the FR-positive tumor cells. This strategy improves the selectivity of drugs which may destroy the normal tissues in traditional chemotherapeutics. This review provides the delivery mechanism of FR-mediated antitumor drugs and highlights the novel folate-drug conjugates and their activities.