Dendrimers in anticancer drug delivery: mechanism of interaction of drug and dendrimers

Dendrimers represents a novel class of macromolecules, which are derived from branches upon branches type structural design. Dendrimers are emerging as promising drug-delivery molecule because of their extraordinary properties including membrane interaction, monodispersity, well-defined size, shape and molecular weight, etc. Drugs interact with dendrimers in three ways; (a) physical encapsulation, (b) electrostatic interactions, and (c) covalent conjugations. Due to compact, globular structure and availability of interior cavity spaces and multiple surface functional groups, drug molecules can be encapsulated both in the interior of the dendrimers (physical encapsulation) as well as attached to the surface functional groups (covalent conjugations).