Glutathione-mediated nanomedicines for cancer diagnosis and therapy

As one of the most important intracellular antioxidants and redox balance regulators, glutathione (GSH) plays a vital role in cell growth and proliferation, drug detoxification and free radical scavenging. In cancer cells, GSH concentration is several folds higher than that in normal cells. In this decade, with the rapid development of nanotechnology and nanomedicine, many studies have developed GSH as an efficient target or trigger for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Nevertheless, reviews systematically summarizing GSH related nanomedicines are still rare. In this review, the different characteristics and functions of GSH in normal and cancer cells are firstly analyzed. Then, recent progresses on GSH-mediated nanomedicines for cancer diagnosis and therapy are comprehensively summarized, including GSH-responsive drug delivery systems, GSH mediated dynamic therapy, immunotherapy and GSH-triggered cancer imaging and theranostics. Different strategies in these methods are discussed including direct utilization of GSH as a trigger and depletion of local GSH for the enhancement of therapy. Finally, the future perspectives and challenges in this field are proposed especially for clinical translation. It is expected that this review would provide some inspiration for future research and development for GSH-mediated nanomedicines.