ABSTRACT
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................ 345
References ........................................................................................................ 345
In protein architectures such as immunoglobulins, valency refers to the number of
copies of a given antigen-binding domain. Any valency number higher than one will
affect the avidity of an antibody for a given antigen. More recently, valency in terms
of the number of protein transduction domains (PTDs) or nuclear localization
signals (NLSs) integrated into a molecular cargo or a peptide scaffold has been
shown to play a major role in enhancing the import and nuclear localization of
peptide-based vehicles in cells.1-5
More precisely, peptide dendrimers containing several polycationic peptide
transduction domains,2,3,6-9 or the introduction of multiple PTDs within the scaffold
of a cargo, can dramatically enhance the cellular uptake of the resulting conjugates.5
