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Review
. 2021 Jul 16:9:699450.
doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.699450. eCollection 2021.

Current Strategies for Microbubble-Based Thrombus Targeting: Activation-Specific Epitopes and Small Molecular Ligands

Zhaojian Wang  1 , Huaigu Huang  1 , Yuexin Chen  1 , Yuehong Zheng  1
Affiliations
Review

Current Strategies for Microbubble-Based Thrombus Targeting: Activation-Specific Epitopes and Small Molecular Ligands

Zhaojian Wang et al. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. .

Abstract

Microbubbles with enhanced ultrasound represent a potentially potent evolution to the administration of a free drug in the treatment of thrombotic diseases. Conformational and expressional changes of several thrombotic biological components during active coagulation provide epitopes that allow site-specific delivery of microbubble-based agents to the thrombus for theranostic purpose. Through the interaction with these epitopes, emerging high-affinity small molecular ligands are able to selectively target the thrombi with tremendous advantages over traditional antibody-based strategy. In this mini-review, we summarize recent novel strategies for microbubble-based targeting of thrombus through epitopes located at activated platelets and fibrin. We also discuss the challenges of current targeting modalities and supramolecular carrier systems for their translational use in thrombotic pathologies.

Keywords: activation-specific probe; microbubbles; small molecular ligand; supramolecular carriers; thrombosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The reviewer YZ declared a shared affiliation, with no collaboration, with the authors ZW, HH, YC, and YZ to the handling editor at the time of the review.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Schematic representations of (A) arterial and venous thrombus, candidate-targeting epitopes, and (B) microbubble-based thrombus-targeting strategies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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