Nanoparticle-Based Drug Delivery Systems for Photodynamic Therapy of Metastatic Melanoma: A Review

Abstract

Metastatic melanoma (MM) is a skin malignancy arising from melanocytes, the incidence of which has been rising in recent years. It poses therapeutic challenges due to its resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs and radiation therapy. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an alternative non-invasive modality that requires a photosensitizer (PS), specific wavelength of light, and molecular oxygen. Several studies using conventional PSs have highlighted the need for improved PSs for PDT applications to achieve desired therapeutic outcomes. The incorporation of nanoparticles (NPs) and targeting moieties in PDT have appeared as a promising strategy to circumvent various drawbacks associated with non-specific toxicity, poor water solubility, and low bioavailability of the PSs at targeted tissues. Currently, most studies investigating new developments rely on two-dimensional (2-D) monocultures, which fail to accurately mimic tissue complexity. Therefore, three-dimensional (3-D) cell cultures are ideal models to resemble tumor tissue in terms of architectural and functional properties. This review examines various PS drugs, as well as passive and active targeted PS nanoparticle-mediated platforms for PDT treatment of MM on 2-D and 3-D models. The overall findings of this review concluded that very few PDT studies have been conducted within 3-D models using active PS nanoparticle-mediated platforms, and so require further investigation.

Synthesis of a novel nanobioconjugate for targeted photodynamic therapy of colon cancer enhanced with cannabidiol

“…Virtually all in vitro PDT experiments are performed on monolayer cultures and the cellular environments of these models do not mimic that of human tumors [39]. Therefore, three-dimensional cell cultures models may serve as excellent models for evaluating the combined efficacy of CBD and PDT in cancer research since they mimic different features of solid tumours far more superior [40].…”

Advances in the Application of Nanomaterials to the Treatment of Melanoma

“…NPs possess unique properties, such as permeability, hydrophilicity, stability, porosity, and large specific surface area. These allow NPs to facilitate drug delivery and the entry of minor compounds into cancer cells and improve the intratumoral concentration of drugs, reducing the effect on healthy tissues [ 175 ]. In this review, we summarize the limitations of current treatments for CM, UM, and MM and the auxiliary role of NPs in different treatment modalities.…”

“…PDT is a modern non-invasive therapy widely used to treat oncological and non-neoplastic diseases [ 174 ]. PDT is based on the uptake of PS by tumor cells and their excitation with appropriate wavelengths of light to induce tumor damage due to the production of ROS cytotoxicity [ 15 , 175 ]. Specifically, there are three main ways to produce antitumor effects: (1) direct destructive effect on tumor cells; (2) generating ROS, causing irreversible damage to cells and microvessels; and (3) dead cells stimulating ICD [ 163 ].…”

Extracellular vesicles as a novel photosensitive drug delivery system for enhanced photodynamic therapy

“…Nanoparticles as carriers for drug delivery present many outstanding properties, including size, charge, porosity, stability, permeability, hydrophilicity, and large surface area-to-volume ratio ( Nkune and Abrahamse, 2021 ; Tu and Yu, 2022 ). They can accumulate in disease areas to improve treatment specificity while mitigating undesirable side effects ( Naidoo et al, 2018 ; Nkune and Abrahamse, 2021 ).…”

“…Nanoparticles as carriers for drug delivery present many outstanding properties, including size, charge, porosity, stability, permeability, hydrophilicity, and large surface area-to-volume ratio ( Nkune and Abrahamse, 2021 ; Tu and Yu, 2022 ). They can accumulate in disease areas to improve treatment specificity while mitigating undesirable side effects ( Naidoo et al, 2018 ; Nkune and Abrahamse, 2021 ). Target delivery is mainly divided into two ways: 1) non-specific passive target delivery achieved by size and charge design of nanoparticles to generate EPR effect and 2) specifically active target delivery by means of surface ligand modification for specific receptors ( Sanna and Sechi, 2020 ; Tang et al, 2021 ).…”