Self-immolative dendrimers as novel drug delivery platforms

Self-immolative dendrimers were recently developed and introduced as a potential platform for a single-triggered multi-prodrug. These unique structural dendrimers can release all of their tail units through domino-like chain fragmentation, which is initiated by a single cleavage at the dendrimer core. The incorporation of drug molecules as the tail units and an enzyme substrate as the trigger generates a multi-prodrug unit that is activated with a single enzymatic cleavage. We have demonstrated several examples of self-immolative dendritic prodrug systems and have shown significant advantages with respect to the appropriate monomeric prodrug. We anticipate that single-triggered, dendritic prodrugs will be exploited to further improve selective chemotherapeutic approaches in cancer therapy. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.