Despite the exciting breakthroughs in medical technology, cancer still accounts for one of the principle triggers of death and conventional therapeutic modalities often fail to attain an effective cure. Recently, nanobiotechnology has made huge advancement in cancer therapy with gigantic application potential because of their ability in achieving precise and controlled drug release, elevating drug solubility and reducing adverse effects. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), one of the most promising carbon-related nanomaterials, have already achieved much success in biomedical field. Due to their excellent optical property, thermal and electronic conductivity, easy functionalization ability and high drug loading capacity, CNTs can be applied in a multifunctional way for cancer treatment and diagnosis. In this review, we will give an overview of the recent progress of CNT-based drug delivery systems in cancer theranostics, which emphasizes their targetability to intracellular components of tumor cells and extracellular elements in tumor microenvironment. Moreover, a detailed introduction on how CNTs penetrate inside the tumor cells to reach their sites of action and achieve the therapeutic effects, as well as their diagnostic applications will be highlighted. Graphic Abstract
Advanced research has revealed the crucial role of tumor microenvironment (TME) in tumorigenesis. TME consists of a complicated network with a variety of cell types including endothelial cells, pericytes, immune cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), cancer stem cells (CSCs) as well as the extracellular matrix (ECM). The TME-constituting cells interact with the cancerous cells through plenty of signaling mechanisms and pathways in a dynamical way, participating in tumor initiation, progression, metastasis, and response to therapies. Hence, TME is becoming an attractive therapeutic target in cancer treatment, exhibiting potential research interest and clinical benefits. Presently, the novel nanotechnology applied in TME regulation has made huge progress. The nanoparticles (NPs) can be designed as demand to precisely target TME components and to inhibit tumor progression through TME modulation. Moreover, nanotechnology-mediated drug delivery possesses many advantages including prolonged circulation time, enhanced bioavailability and decreased toxicity over traditional therapeutic modality. In this review, update information on TME remodeling through NPs-based targeted drug delivery strategies for anticancer therapy is summarized.
rHDL is a synthesized drug delivery nanoplatform exhibiting excellent biocompatibility, which possesses most of HDL’s advantages, shows almost no toxicity and can be degraded to non-toxic substances in vivo. Recently,...
The combinational application of photothermal therapy (PTT), chemotherapy, and nanotechnology is a booming therapeutic strategy for cancer treatment. Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) is often utilized as drug carrier in biomedical fields with excellent photothermal properties, and indocyanine green (ICG) is a near-infrared (NIR) dye approved by FDA. In addition, ICG is also a photothermal agent that can strongly absorb light energy for tumor ablation. Herein, we explored a synergistic strategy by connecting MWNT and a kind of ICG derivate ICG-NH2 through hyaluronic acid (HA) that possesses CD44 receptor targeting ability, which largely enhanced the PTT effect of both MWNT and ICG-NH2. To realize the synergistic therapeutic effect of chemotherapy and phototherapy, doxorubicin (DOX) was attached on the wall of MWNT via π–π interaction to obtain the final MWNT-HA-ICG/DOX nanocomplexes. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments verified the great therapeutic efficacy of MWNT-HA-ICG/DOX nanocomplexes, which was characterized by improved photothermal performance, strengthened cytotoxicity, and elevated tumor growth inhibition based on MCF-7 tumor models. Therefore, this synergistic strategy we report here might offer a new idea with promising application prospect for cancer treatment.
Despite the encouraging breakthroughs in medical development, cancer remains one of the principle causes of death and threatens human health around the world. Conventional treatment strategies often kill cancer cells at the expense of serious adverse effects or great pain, which yet is not able to achieve an effective cure. Therefore, it is urgent to seek for other novel anticancer approaches to improve the survival rate and life quality of cancer patients. During the past decades, nanotechnology has made tremendous progress in cancer therapy due to many advantages such as targeted drug delivery, decreased dosage-related adverse effects and prolonged drug circulation time. In the context of nanomedicine, carbon nanomaterials occupy very significant positions. Owing to their innate outstanding optical, thermal, electronic, and mechanic features, easy functionalization possibility and large surface for drug loading, carbon nanomaterials serve as not only drug carriers, but also multifunctional platforms to combine with diverse treatment and diagnosis modalities against cancer. Therefore, developing more carbon-based nanoplatforms plays a critical role in cancer theranostics and an update overview that summarizes the recent achievement of carbon nanomaterial-mediated anticancer theranostic approaches is of necessity. In this review, five typical and widely investigated carbon nanomaterials including graphene, graphdiyne, fullerene, carbon nanotubes and carbon quantum dots are introduced in detail from the aspect of treatment strategies based on both cancer cells and tumor microenvironment-involved therapeutic targets. Meanwhile, modern diagnostic methods and clinical translatability of carbon nanomaterials will be highlighted as well.
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