Comparative Study of Glucose and Mannose as Liposome Targeting Moieties for Enhanced Cancer Cell Uptake

Nanoparticles have emerged as powerful tools in cancer therapy, enhancing drug delivery by improving the solubility, stability, and precision of therapeutic agents. Among these, liposomes are particularly effective due to their biocompatibility and ability to carry drugs and target them specifically to cancer cells. Nanoparticles can be targeted both passively, by exploiting the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect in tumors, and actively, through targeting moieties that bind to overexpressed receptors on cancer cells. Glucose Transporter 1 (GLUT1) is a critical target in cancer therapy due to its elevated expression in many cancer cells, which rely on increased glucose uptake for rapid growth and high metabolic activity. The strong affinity of GLUT1 for glucose makes it ideal for active targeting strategies, and glucose-coated liposomes utilize this affinity to enhance drug delivery. Recently, mannose has also been explored as an alternative targeting moiety due to its transport via GLUT1 (though with lower affinity). Therefore, this study compared the potential effectiveness of glucose and mannose for nanoparticle-based cancer therapy. We synthesized glucose-coated and mannose-coated liposomes and evaluated their uptake in various cancer cell lines that overexpress GLUT1. Our results showed that glucose-coated liposomes have significantly higher cellular uptake compared to mannose-coated liposomes. These findings highlight the superior potential of glucose-coated nanoparticles for targeted cancer therapy, offering insights into optimizing nanoparticle design for more effective drug delivery and complementing existing uses of glucose in medical applications.