Enhancing Skin Cancer Immunotheranostics and Precision Medicine through Functionalized Nanomodulators and Nanosensors: Recent Development and Prospects

Abstract

Skin cancers, especially melanomas, present a formidable diagnostic and therapeutic challenge to the scientific community. Currently, the incidence of melanomas shows a high increase worldwide. Traditional therapeutics are limited to stalling or reversing malignant proliferation, increased metastasis, or rapid recurrence. Nonetheless, the advent of immunotherapy has led to a paradigm shift in treating skin cancers. Many state-of-art immunotherapeutic techniques, namely, active vaccination, chimeric antigen receptors, adoptive T-cell transfer, and immune checkpoint blockers, have achieved a considerable increase in survival rates. Despite its promising outcomes, current immunotherapy is still limited in its efficacy. Newer modalities are now being explored, and significant progress is made by integrating cancer immunotherapy with modular nanotechnology platforms to enhance its therapeutic efficacy and diagnostics. Research on targeting skin cancers with nanomaterial-based techniques has been much more recent than other cancers. Current investigations using nanomaterial-mediated targeting of nonmelanoma and melanoma cancers are directed at augmenting drug delivery and immunomodulation of skin cancers to induce a robust anticancer response and minimize toxic effects. Many novel nanomaterial formulations are being discovered, and clinical trials are underway to explore their efficacy in targeting skin cancers through functionalization or drug encapsulation. The focus of this review rivets on theranostic nanomaterials that can modulate immune mechanisms toward protective, therapeutic, or diagnostic approaches for skin cancers. The recent breakthroughs in nanomaterial-based immunotherapeutic modulation of skin cancer types and diagnostic potentials in personalized immunotherapies are discussed.

Development of nanoemulgel of 5-Fluorouracil for skin melanoma using glycyrrhizin as a penetration enhancer

“…Tween 80 (polysorbate 80), another non-ionic surfactant, was chosen for its ability to reduce surface tension significantly, thereby enhancing the emulsion's permeability and spreadability on the skin. Its compatibility with Span 80 is particularly beneficial in forming a stable interface, crucial for the integrity of the NE ( Hartmann et al, 2022 , Farhana, 2023 ). Co-surfactants are selected on the basis of compatibility and strong interfacial tension reduction ability 30].…”

“…Each sample was sealed in a small aluminium pan and scanned in the range 30––350 °C at 20 °C heating rate. The empty pan was used as a reference standard and inert nitrogen gas was inserted at a flow rate of 60 ml/min till completion of the experiment ( Farhana, 2023 ).…”

Gel Formulations for Topical Treatment of Skin Cancer: A Review

“…Thus, the increased number of publications researching the combinatorial drug delivery of nanocarrier-loaded gels is no surprise. A further possibility for improved therapeutic efficiency while simultaneously limiting the side effects in the adjacent skin tissues is targeted delivery of the API to the cancer cells [25,26]. The process can be either passive or active based on the underlying mechanisms involved.…”

“…Therefore, the active targeting not only enhances tumor accumulation but also increases intracellular delivery [28]. Possible overexpressed receptors that may be candidates for active targeting in skin cancers are folate receptor α isoform, transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1), CD44 surface markers for hyaluronic acid, and other proteins [25,26,28,29].…”

Immunomodulation of Skin Cancer

“…Current investigations using nanomaterial-mediated targeting of non-melanoma and melanoma cancers are directed at augmenting drug delivery and immunomodulation of skin cancers to induce a robust anticancer response and minimize toxic effects. The use of theranostic nanomaterials that can modulate immune mechanisms toward protective, therapeutic, or diagnostic approaches for skin cancers, along with the recent breakthroughs in nanomaterial-based immunotherapeutic modulation of skin cancer types and diagnostic potentials in personalized immunotherapies have been discussed [ 14 ]. Tamura et al discuss their efforts in developing novel chemo–thermos–immunotherapy (CTI therapy) by conjugating a melanogenesis substrate, N -propionyl cysteaminylphenol (NPrCAP: amine analog of tyrosine), with magnetite nanoparticles (MNP).…”