The Spicy Science of Dendrimers in the Realm of Cancer Nanomedicine: A Report from the COST Action CA17140 Nano2Clinic

COST Action CA17140 Cancer Nanomedicine-from the bench to the bedside (Nano2Clinic,) is the first, pan-European interdisciplinary network of representatives from academic institutions and small and medium enterprises including clinical research organizations (CROs) devoted to the development of nanosystems carrying anticancer drugs from their initial design, preclinical testing of efficacy, pharmacokinetics and toxicity to the preparation of detailed protocols needed for the first phase of their clinical studies. By promoting scientific exchanges, technological implementation, and innovative solutions, the action aims at providing a timely instrument to rationalize and focus research efforts at the European level in dealing with the grand challenge of nanomedicine translation in cancer, one of the major and societal-burdening human pathologies. Within CA17140, dendrimers in all their forms (from covalent to self-assembling dendrons) play a vital role as powerful nanotheranostic agents in oncology; therefore, the purpose of this review work is to gather and summarize the major results in the field stemming from collaborative efforts in the framework of the European Nano2Clinic COST Action.

Assembling Complex Macromolecules and Self-Organizations of Biological Relevance with Cu(I)-Catalyzed Azide-Alkyne, Thio-Bromo, and TERMINI Double "Click" Reactions

In 2022, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Bertozzi, Meldal, and Sharpless "for the development of click chemistry and biorthogonal chemistry". Since 2001, when the concept of click chemistry was advanced by Sharpless laboratory, synthetic chemists started to envision click reactions as the preferred choice of synthetic methodology employed to create new functions. This brief perspective will summarize research performed in our laboratories with the classic Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne click (CuAAC) reaction elaborated by Meldal and Sharpless, with the thio-bromo click (TBC) and with the less-used, irreversible TERminator Multifunctional INItiator (TERMINI) dual click (TBC) reactions, the last two elaborated in our laboratory. These click reactions will be used to assemble, by accelerated modular-orthogonal methodologies, complex macromolecules and self-organizations of biological relevance. Self-assembling amphiphilic Janus dendrimers and Janus glycodendrimers together with their biological membrane mimics known as dendrimersomes and glycodendrimersomes as well as simple methodologies to assemble macromolecules with perfect and complex architecture such as dendrimers from commercial monomers and building blocks will be discussed. This perspective is dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Professor Bogdan C. Simionescu, the son of my (VP) Ph.D. mentor, Professor Cristofor I. Simionescu, who as his father, took both science and science administration in his hands, and dedicated his life to handling them in a tandem way, to their best.

Properties and Bioapplications of Amphiphilic Janus Dendrimers: A Review

Amphiphilic Janus dendrimers are arrangements containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic units, capable of forming ordered aggregates by intermolecular noncovalent interactions between the dendrimer units. Compared to conventional dendrimers, these molecular self-assemblies possess particular and effective attributes i.e., the presence of different terminal groups, essential to design new elaborated materials. The present review will focus on the pharmaceutical and biomedical application of amphiphilic Janus dendrimers. Important information for the development of novel optimized pharmaceutical formulations, such as structural classification, synthetic pathways, properties and applications, will offer the complete characterization of this type of Janus dendrimers. This work will constitute an up-to-date background for dendrimer specialists involved in designing amphiphilic Janus dendrimer-based nanomaterials for future innovations in this promising field.

Dendrimersome Synthetic Cells Harbor Cell Division Machinery of Bacteria

The integration of active cell machinery with synthetic building blocks is the bridge toward developing synthetic cells with biological functions and beyond. Self-replication is one of the most important tasks of living systems, and various complex machineries exist to execute it. In Escherichia coli, a contractile division ring is positioned to mid-cell by concentration oscillations of self-organizing proteins (MinCDE), where it severs membrane and cell wall. So far, the reconstitution of any cell division machinery has exclusively been tied to liposomes. Here, the reconstitution of a rudimentary bacterial divisome in fully synthetic bicomponent dendrimersomes is shown. By tuning the membrane composition, the interaction of biological machinery with synthetic membranes can be tailored to reproduce its dynamic behavior. This constitutes an important breakthrough in the assembly of synthetic cells with biological elements, as tuning of membrane-divisome interactions is the key to engineering emergent biological behavior from the bottom-up.

Recent Development in the Design of Neoglycoliposomes Bearing Arborescent Architectures

This brief review highlights systematic progress in the design of synthetic glycolipid (neoglycolipids) analogs evolving from the conventional architectures of natural glycosphingolipids and gangliosides. Given that naturally occurring glycolipids are composed of only one hydrophilic sugar head-group and two hydrophobic lipid tails embedded in the lipid bilayers of the cell membranes, they usually require extraneous lipids (phosphatidylcholine, cholesterol) to confer their stability. In order to obviate the necessity for these additional stabilizing ingredients, recent investigations have merged dendrimer chemistry with that of neoglycolipid syntheses. This singular approach has provided novel glycoarchitectures allowing reconsidering the necessity for the traditional one to two hydrophilic/hydrophobic ratio. An emphasis has been provided in the recent design of modular arborescent neoglycolipid syntheses coined glycodendrimersomes.

Vesicles from Amphiphilic Dumbbells and Janus Dendrimers: Bioinspired Self-Assembled Structures for Biomedical Applications

The current review focuses on vesicles obtained from the self-assembly of two types of dendritic macromolecules, namely amphiphilic Janus dendrimers (forming dendrimersomes) and amphiphilic dumbbells. In the first part, we will present some synthetic strategies and the various building blocks that can be used to obtain dendritic-based macromolecules, thereby showing their structural versatility. We put our focus on amphiphilic Janus dendrimers and amphiphilic dumbbells that form vesicles in water but we also encompass vesicles formed thereof in organic solvents. The second part of this review deals with the production methods of these vesicles at the nanoscale but also at the microscale. Furthermore, the influence of various parameters (intrinsic to the amphiphilic JD and extrinsic-from the environment) on the type of vesicle formed will be discussed. In the third part, we will review the numerous biomedical applications of these vesicles of nano- or micron-size.