Blood–brain barrier shuttle peptides: an emerging paradigm for brain delivery

Abstract

Brain delivery is one of the major challenges in drug development because of the high number of patients suffering from neural diseases and the low efficiency of the treatments available. Although the blood–brain barrier (BBB) prevents most drugs from reaching their targets, molecular vectors – known as BBB shuttles – offer great promise to safely overcome this formidable obstacle. In recent years, peptide shuttles have received growing attention because of their lower cost, reduced immunogenicity, and higher chemical versatility than traditional Trojan horse antibodies and other proteins.