<p>Smart Targeting To Improve Cancer Therapeutics</p>

Abstract

Cancer is the second largest cause of death worldwide with the number of new cancer cases predicted to grow significantly in the next decades. Biotechnology and medicine can and should work hand-in-hand to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment efficacy. However, success has been frequently limited, in particular when treating late-stage solid tumors. There still is the need to develop smart and synergistic therapeutic approaches to achieve the synthesis of strong and effective drugs and delivery systems. Much interest has been paid to the development of smart drug delivery systems (drug-loaded particles) that utilize passive targeting, active targeting, and/or stimulus responsiveness strategies. This review will summarize some main ideas about the effect of each strategy and how the combination of some or all of them has shown to be effective. After a brief introduction of current cancer therapies and their limitations, we describe the biological barriers that nanoparticles need to overcome, followed by presenting different types of drug delivery systems to improve drug accumulation in tumors. Then, we describe cancer cell membrane targets that increase cellular drug uptake through active targeting mechanisms. Stimulusresponsive targeting is also discussed by looking at the intra-and extracellular conditions for specific drug release. We include a significant amount of information summarized in tables and figures on nanoparticle-based therapeutics, PEGylated drugs, different ligands for the design of active-targeted systems, and targeting of different organs. We also discuss some still prevailing fundamental limitations of these approaches, eg, by occlusion of targeting ligands.

Optimization and Characterization of Protein Nanoparticles for the Targeted and Smart Delivery of Cytochrome c to Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma

“…Nevertheless, one of the limitations of NP drug delivery systems is conveying the effective dose to induce cell death in vivo, and in that aspect, a larger nanoparticle such as the NP-354 or delivery of a more potent drug could have an advantage. Other aspects to take into consideration besides size and drug load is NP surface charge and optimal NP delivery method (tumor-direct or systemic tumor application) which will depend on the type and progress of the targeted tumor [24,37].…”

Current Trends in ATRA Delivery for Cancer Therapy

“…Recently, combining internal and external stimuli in a single system was described to obtain a synergic therapeutic effect in the targeted site [183].…”

Cancer Nanomedicine Special Issue Review Anticancer Drug Delivery with Nanoparticles: Extracellular Vesicles or Synthetic Nanobeads as Therapeutic Tools for Conventional Treatment or Immunotherapy

“…Liposomes are an example of natural NP, with an aqueous core that can load hydrophilic molecules, surrounded by phospholipids and a cholesterol bilayer. Liposomes are more biocompatible than other NP and protect the drug from degradation; however, due to this latter characteristic, it is not always easy to control bio-distribution and toxicityof the carried drug [ 105 , 107 ]. Liposomes can also modify anticancer agents as reported by Liu and coworkers that, using an alanine-alanine-asparagine-trans-activating factor (AAN-TAT-liposome platform, made a doxorubicin carrier able to enhance the tumoricidal effect and reduce side effects [ 108 ].…”