Abstract

Chronic liver and kidney diseases are among the most fearful pathologies affecting an increasing number of people, having severe consequences on life quality. Although much progress has been made in recent years, availability of cost-effective and innovative therapies is still an unmet medical need. One of the major challenges in the therapy of liver and kidney diseases is to selectively deliver drugs to achieve therapeutically relevant concentration in the target organ, in order to decrease the amount of drug needed and to reduce unwanted side effects. In this review we summarize recent advances in selective drug targeting to liver or to kidney including cell-selective therapeutic approaches as well. We pay special attention to plant-derived bioactive molecules which constitute promising tools for the treatment of chronic liver and kidney diseases. We discuss cellular, subcellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the observed pharmacological effects of plant-derived drugs and give an overview of formulations, which can increase therapeutic effectiveness of these biomolecules in the treatment of chronic liver and kidney disorders.

Keywords: liver fibrosis, kidney fibrosis, plant-derived biomolecules, drug delivery.