Chimie médicale

New Perspectives in Cancer Therapy: The Biotin-Antitumor Molecule Conjugates

Abstract

Giuseppe Tripodo, Delia Mandracchia, Simona Collina, Marta Rui and Daniela Rossi

Chemotherapy is still the first-line treatment of cancer, even if drugs currently used in therapy generally possess high toxicity and poor selectivity. In the last two decades several efforts have been made to overcome these drawbacks by specifically carrying anticancer drugs to the tumors. Among the different approaches, the so called vitaminmediated drug targeting has recently emerged as a novel and valuable strategy. Indeed, the linkage of cytotoxic drugs to selected vitamins, leading to vitamin-drug conjugates, would result in specifically delivering great amounts of the targeted drug at high doses to cancer cells. Among vitamins, biotin seems to be the most promising targeting agent. The aim of this review is to get an overview on recent success in the conjugation of biotin with molecules endowed with anticancer properties.