Studies of macromolecular prodrugs of zidovudine

The current problems in controlling severe viral infections such as AIDS as well as the lack of effective and safe therapeutic measures for such disea ses have caused interest in systems such as macromolecular prodrugs potenti ally able to solve heavier drawbacks of conventional antiviral therapy. Thi s review focuses on various approaches proposed in the literature in this f ield. Neoglycoproteins and synthetic protein-like structure polymers have b een mainly proposed. In the first group, the possibility of incorporating i nto the polymeric structures a determined amount of sugar molecules make th em interesting candidates for targeting of infected blood cells. The conjug ate of zidovudine (AZT) and an anti-transferrin receptor antibody OX-26 has been proposed for brain targeting. The conjugate of AZT with alpha,beta -p oly(N-hydroxyethyl)-DL-aspartamide (PHEA) showed good release properties in a prolonged rime. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.