Enzyme‐Powered Micro/Nanomotors for Cancer Treatment

Abstract

The incidence and lethal rate of cancers are rapidly rising recently, however current treatments of cancers, such as surgical resection, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy, usually require long treatment period and have more side effects and high recurrence rate. Enzymepowered micro/nanomotors (EMNMs), with powerful selfpropulsion, enhanced permeability and good biocompatibility, have shown great potential in crossing biological barrier and targeted drug transportation for cancer treatment; moreover, advanced approaches based on EMNMs such as photothermal therapy and starvation therapy have also been widely explored in cancer treatment. Although there are several review works discussing the progress of micro/nanomotors for biomedical applications, there is not one review paper with the focus on the cancer treatment based on EMNMs. Therefore, in this review, we try to concisely and timely summarize the recent progress of cancer treatment based on enzyme-driven micro/nanomotors, such as brain tumors, bladder cancer, breast cancer and others. Finally, the challenges and outlook of cancer therapy based on EMNMs are discussed, hoping to provide fundamental guidance for the future development.

pH‐Sensitive Glucose‐Powered Nanomotors for Enhanced Intracellular Drug Delivery and Ferroptosis Efficiency

“…Self-propelled nanomotors are nano-scale devices capable of converting the energy from the surrounding environment into autonomous motion, and providing of high speed, enhanced diffusion, enhanced penetration, and chemotactic migration properties. [19][20][21] Given these advantages, nanomotors have become a research hotspot in the field of nano-materials, with potential applications in drug delivery, sensing, nanosurgery, biomedicine, and environmental remediation. [22,23] Especially, enzyme-powered nanomotors, which are self-propelled by a concentration gradient of fuel or bubbles from a catalytic reaction, have attracted much attention due to their biocompatibility and high reaction rates, and show potential applications in chemotherapy, photodynamic, photothermal therapy and starvation therapy.…”

“…[22,23] Especially, enzyme-powered nanomotors, which are self-propelled by a concentration gradient of fuel or bubbles from a catalytic reaction, have attracted much attention due to their biocompatibility and high reaction rates, and show potential applications in chemotherapy, photodynamic, photothermal therapy and starvation therapy. [24][25][26] Sánchez et al presented enzyme-propelled mesoporous silica nanomotors, which can provide cancer therapy by targeted drug delivery. [27] Liu et al produced glucose oxidase-modified cube-shaped CaCO 3 double-engineered micromotors, which delivery drug to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy and starvation therapy.…”

“…Self‐propelled nanomotors are nano‐scale devices capable of converting the energy from the surrounding environment into autonomous motion, and providing of high speed, enhanced diffusion, enhanced penetration, and chemotactic migration properties [19–21] . Given these advantages, nanomotors have become a research hotspot in the field of nano‐materials, with potential applications in drug delivery, sensing, nano‐surgery, biomedicine, and environmental remediation [22,23] .…”

“…Given these advantages, nanomotors have become a research hotspot in the field of nano‐materials, with potential applications in drug delivery, sensing, nano‐surgery, biomedicine, and environmental remediation [22,23] . Especially, enzyme‐powered nanomotors, which are self‐propelled by a concentration gradient of fuel or bubbles from a catalytic reaction, have attracted much attention due to their biocompatibility and high reaction rates, and show potential applications in chemotherapy, photodynamic, photothermal therapy and starvation therapy [24–26] . Sánchez et al.…”

Untethered Microgrippers for Precision Medicine

“…To complete a specific task, microgrippers should have at least an opening–closing action ability via shape transformation, and they should also have locomotion ability with an effective net displacement, which will be discussed in detail in the following section. Similar to other microrobots, the locomotion of a microgripper can be theoretically actuated by magnetic fields, [ 5 ] ultrasonic fields, [ 69 ] lights, [ 70 ] enzymes, [ 71 ] vapors, [ 72 ] bubbles, [ 73 ] bacteria, [ 74,75 ] sperm cells, [ 76 ] and so on. Among them, magnetically driven microgrippers are the most attractive because of the abundant advantages of magnetic fields, such as having high remote and spatiotemporal controllability, being free of toxic chemicals, being harmless to biological tissues, and having the characteristics of programmability, recyclability, and versatility.…”