Going beyond the scratched surface with In situ self-assembly: protease activated developments for imaging and therapy

Abstract

As the manifestation of most diseases originate from molecular malfunctions too insignificant to be detectable by existing diagnostic techniques, irregular molecular-level events such as the overexpression of a disease-related protease can be amplified by inducing an aggregation or accumulation to better facilitate early detection and treatment. This thesis hence explores different novel and interesting mechanisms on how the innate overexpression of furin, a particular disease-related protease of interest, can be exploited as an endogenous stimulus for tumor site-specific self-assembly to largely amplify minute irregularities in the tumor microenvironment, bringing about a drastic difference in effect between tumor and normal cells.