Current status, challenges and future directions in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases by polymeric materials

Nowadays, one of the major challenges in biomedical and biopharmaceutical field is designing novel and effective anti-amyloidogenic inhibitors for the treatment of various human pathophysiologies associated with protein aggregation. In this milieu, numerous small molecules, polyphenols, surfactants, nanoparticles, etc. have been extensively studied to explore their anti-amyloidogenic properties, and thus provide huge scope for them to appear as future therapeutic agents in the treatment of amyloidogenic disorders. Recently, inspired by the fascinating properties of polymers such as non-toxicity, excellent biocompatibility, tuneable architectures, controllable degradation rate, possibility of multiple interaction between amyloidogenic protein/peptide and polymer, and excellent in vivo stability, polymer-based therapeutic agents have been extensively explored in the field of protein misfolding and aggregation. This mini-review article emphasizes the recent advancements of polymeric materials in the field of protein aggregation for ameliorating neurodegenerative diseases. Finally, we conclude this mini-review by providing some viewpoints on future directions.