Mitochondria targeting nano agents in cancer therapeutics

Abstract

Mitochondria have emerged as noteworthy therapeutic targets as their physiological functions are often altered in pathological conditions such as cancer. The electronic databases of MEDLINE, EMBASE and PubMed were searched for recent studies reporting the importance of mitochondria targeting nanoagents in cancer therapeutics. The concluding remarks of the above papers mostly confirmed the growing potential of these novel nanoagents in the area of anticancer research. Furthermore, numerous studies demonstrated the immense potential of nanocarriers in delivering mitochondria-acting compounds to their target site. Among the assemblage of nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are becoming more prominent for drug delivery due to favorable attributes including their unique shape, which promotes cellular uptake, and large aspect ratio that facilitates conjugation of bioactive molecules on their surface. The present review focused on the current view of variable options available in mitochondria-targeting anticancer therapeutics. It may be concluded that improvements are essential for its establishment as a gold standard therapeutic option especially in the clinical setting.

Mitochondrial-Targeting Anticancer Agent Conjugates and Nanocarrier Systems for Cancer Treatment

“…The concept of mitochondrial targeting is based on the mitochondrial membrane potential, which differs from the plasma membrane potential. The mitochondrial membrane potential is approximately -180 mV, which is 3- to 5-fold higher than that of the plasma membrane ( Zhang and Zhang, 2016b ; Zielonka et al, 2017 ). Thus, positively charged molecules easily accumulate in the mitochondria.…”

“…The first nanomaterials applied for mitochondrial targeting were dequalinium (DQA) micelles (DQAsomes), which exhibit liposome-like self-assembly in aqueous solution ( Weissig et al, 1998 ; Weissig and Torchilin, 2001 ; D’Souza et al, 2003 ). Then, other nanomaterials, including polymeric nanoparticles, metallic nanoparticles, and liposomes, were prepared as mitochondrial drug delivery carriers ( Zhang and Zhang, 2016a ; Wang et al, 2017 ).…”

Natural products and phytochemical nanoformulations targeting mitochondria in oncotherapy: an updated review on resveratrol

“…There have been efforts to target mitochondria using NPs. Notably, due to the negative charge of mitochondrial membranes of tumor cells, these NPs should have positive charges [245,246]. It seems that mitochondrial-targeted NPs have great therapeutic impacts [247][248][249].…”

Targeted Delivery of Mitochondrial Calcium Channel Regulators: The Future of Glaucoma Treatment?

“…Organelle-specific drug targeting itself is not novel, being reviewed in multiple excellent publications (Sakhrani and Padh, 2013 ; Zhang and Zhang, 2016 ). While mitochondrial-specific drug targeting has not been applied to glaucoma, researchers have been actively proposing new mitochondrial delivery/transporter systems to target this organelle in other diseases.…”