Specific recognition of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) by peptides for cell targeting – GLYCOTARGET

Drug delivery into cells is one of the main challenges that faces therapeutical development. Among strategies, peptide-driven delivery has become attractive in the last decades, and consists in the attachment of drugs to a peptide endowed with cell penetrating properties. Although significant achievements have been done in this field of vectorization and nanotechnologies, several technological locks remain, from the efficacy of the drug delivery process to peptide biodistribution and degradation in the body. Many of these locks result at least in part, to the lack of selectivity of peptide targeting toward the desired cells or tissue. In this context, the objective of the project GLYCOTARGET is to combine peptide sequences recognizing specific sulfated polysaccharides found at the surface of cells, with a cell-penetration one. These peptides are interesting for the future of nanomedicine, in particular in oncology since modulation of GAG content and expression is found in many cancer cells.