Functionalized Liposome and Albumin-Based Systems as Carriers for Poorly Water-Soluble Anticancer Drugs: An Updated Review

Abstract

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In the available treatments, chemotherapy is one of the most used, but has several associated problems, namely the high toxicity to normal cells and the resistance acquired by cancer cells to the therapeutic agents. The scientific community has been battling against this disease, developing new strategies and new potential chemotherapeutic agents. However, new drugs often exhibit poor solubility in water, which led researchers to develop functionalized nanosystems to carry and, specifically deliver, the drugs to cancer cells, targeting overexpressed receptors, proteins, and organelles. Thus, this review is focused on the recent developments of functionalized nanosystems used to carry poorly water-soluble drugs, with special emphasis on liposomes and albumin-based nanosystems, two major classes of organic nanocarriers with formulations already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for cancer therapeutics.

Functionalized liposomes for targeted breast cancer drug delivery

“…Chemotherapy is the treatment of choice for breast cancer but is associated with several limitations. Firstly, the most notable, is its lack of specificity resulting in systemic toxicity causing many well-documented short- and long-term side effects [ 24 , 25 ]. The overuse of chemotherapy, defined as the provision of neo- or adjuvant chemotherapies in situations where the specific treatment regime is not necessarily required or recommended, is also of growing concern with severe financial, physical, and psychological implications for patients [ 26 , 27 ].…”

Design-of-Experiment-Assisted Fabrication of Biodegradable Polymeric Nanoparticles: In Vitro Characterization, Biological Activity, and In Vivo Assessment

“…The NP drug delivery system trending toward a successful development of a drug product achieved large popularity toward therapeutic effects due to more accurate, specific, and targeting capabilities and thus increased the drug concentration in the target area . It has been established that the targeted drug delivery led to the development of a broad range of NP therapeutic systems applying different nanocarrier systems such as polymer-based, lipid-based, organic, metallic, dendrimer, carbon dots, and nanorods in cancer therapy. − …”

Enhanced Uptake and Phototoxicity of C60@albumin Hybrids by Folate Bioconjugation

“…Albumins are ideal protein carriers for therapeutic agents and photosensitizers because of their unique properties, such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, their absence of toxicity, non-immunogenicity and long blood circulation [23][24][25][26][27][28]. Human serum albumin (HSA) is a single-chain protein with a molecular weight of 66.7 kDa, composed of 585 amino acids [23][24][25][26][27][28]. HSA is water-soluble and is the most abundant protein in human blood plasma, with a half-life of approximately 21 days [23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

“…Human serum albumin (HSA) is a single-chain protein with a molecular weight of 66.7 kDa, composed of 585 amino acids [23][24][25][26][27][28]. HSA is water-soluble and is the most abundant protein in human blood plasma, with a half-life of approximately 21 days [23][24][25][26][27][28]. HSA is the natural carrier of hydrophobic molecules in the blood.…”

“…HSA exhibits passive tumor targeting due to its enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. As a result of the leaky vasculature and lack of lymphatic drainage in tumor tissues, HSA can extravasate and accumulate in the tumor tissue, reaching high intratumor concentrations [23][24][25][26][27][28]. Additionally, two albuminbinding proteins, gp60 (a 60 kDa albumin-binding glycoprotein) and the albumin-binding protein SPARC (secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine), also facilitate the absorption and retention of albumin in cancer cells via active targeting [23][24][25][26][27][28].…”