The concept of targeted drug delivery evolved from the “magic bullet” idea put forth by Paul Ehrlich more than a century ago, whose original intention was to kill disease-causing microbes without harming the body itself. In this minireview, we highlight sugar-mediated targeted delivery strategies that capitalize on the unique metabolic features of cancer cells (the so-called Warburg effect) and bacteria to enhance the efficacy of anti-cancer chemotherapeutics and antimicrobials, respectively. The differences in metabolism between cancerous and normal cells and how the overexpression of sugar transporters in cancer cells can be capitalized for cancer therapy are first discussed. Subsequently, different designs of sugar-conjugated therapeutic agents and delivery systems are presented. Finally, we show that while targeting bacterial cell metabolism to increase antimicrobial efficacy is based on a different concept from that employed for cancer therapy, co-administration of antimicrobials with glucose and other metabolites either in the free form or conjugated to carriers can increase bacterial cell susceptibility to antimicrobial agents.

中文翻译：

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通过糖介导的策略增强抗癌化学疗法和抗菌素

靶向药物输送的概念源于一个多世纪前的保罗·埃里希（Paul Ehrlich）提出的“魔术子弹”概念，其最初意图是杀死引起疾病的微生物而不损害身体本身。在本小型审查中，我们重点介绍了糖介导的靶向递送策略，该策略利用癌细胞和细菌的独特代谢特征（所谓的Warburg效应）和细菌来分别增强抗癌化学疗法和抗微生物剂的功效。首先讨论了癌细胞与正常细胞之间新陈代谢的差异，以及如何利用癌细胞中糖转运蛋白的过表达来进行癌症治疗。随后，提出了糖缀合治疗剂和递送系统的不同设计。最后，