Recent progress in the development of nanomaterials targeting multiple cancer metabolic pathways: a review of mechanistic approaches for cancer treatment

Abstract

Cancer is a very heterogeneous disease, and uncontrolled cell division is the main characteristic of cancer. Cancerous cells need a high nutrition intake to enable aberrant growth and survival. To do so, cancer cells modify metabolic pathways to produce energy and anabolic precursors and preserve redox balance. Due to the importance of metabolic pathways in tumor growth and malignant transformation, metabolic pathways have also been given promising perspectives for cancer treatment, providing more effective treatment strategies, and target-specific with minimum side effects. Metabolism-based therapeutic nanomaterials for targeted cancer treatment are a promising option. Numerous types of nanoparticles (NPs) are employed in the research and analysis of various cancer therapies. The current review focuses on cutting-edge strategies and current cancer therapy methods based on nanomaterials that target various cancer metabolisms. Additionally, it highlighted the primacy of NPs-based cancer therapies over traditional ones, the challenges, and the future potential.

Cancer stem cells: Signaling pathways and therapeutic targeting

“…327,328 Active targeting involves NP conjugation with antibodies, peptides, aptamers, or other molecules, reducing toxicity to healthy cells, preventing drug degradation, and offering advantages such as specificity, biocompatibility, reduced cytotoxicity, extended drug half-lives, controlled release, and high drug loading capacity compared to traditional chemotherapy. 329 Passive targeting relies on the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, allowing NPs to accumulate slowly in tumor tissue while sparing healthy cells. 330 Diverse nanocarriers include lipid-based NPs, polymer/nonpolymer NPs, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene oxide, nanocapsules, dendritic macromolecules, polymer micelles, and quantum dots (QDs), enhancing therapeutic delivery with biocompatible payloads.…”

“…331,332 Ongoing developments in nanotherapeutics continue to explore various nanomaterial carriers, advancing efficient drug and therapeutic delivery. 329,330 As such various nanodrug delivery systems and strategies for targeting CSCs using nanoparticles which has been exclusively discussed in details in the review by Yue et al 333 Hyaluronic acid (HA) has been used in drug delivery systems to target CD44, a common receptor on CSCs. Various studies have utilized HAbased nanocarriers to enhance drug delivery to CSCs and inhibit their growth.…”

“…Nanocarriers enable precise targeted drug delivery through active and passive mechanisms 327,328 . Active targeting involves NP conjugation with antibodies, peptides, aptamers, or other molecules, reducing toxicity to healthy cells, preventing drug degradation, and offering advantages such as specificity, biocompatibility, reduced cytotoxicity, extended drug half‐lives, controlled release, and high drug loading capacity compared to traditional chemotherapy 329 . Passive targeting relies on the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, allowing NPs to accumulate slowly in tumor tissue while sparing healthy cells 330 .…”

“…Diverse nanocarriers include lipid‐based NPs, polymer/nonpolymer NPs, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene oxide, nanocapsules, dendritic macromolecules, polymer micelles, and quantum dots (QDs), enhancing therapeutic delivery with biocompatible payloads 331,332 . Ongoing developments in nanotherapeutics continue to explore various nanomaterial carriers, advancing efficient drug and therapeutic delivery 329,330 …”

A Review of Advanced Multifunctional Magnetic Nanostructures for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy Integrated into an Artificial Intelligence Approach

“…During the past few years, nanotechnology has been involved in chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and targeted therapy for the treatment of various types of cancer [ 6 ]. Nanomaterials are used in modern nanomedicine for developing early diagnostic, detection, and treatment methods [ 7 , 8 ]. Several factors affect the potential biomedical applications, including porosity, size, surface functional groups, electronic properties, zeta potential, and possible interactions [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”