The Impact of Physicochemical Characteristics on Therapeutic Efficacy of Anticancer Nanomaterials: A Review

Abstract

Cancer is a leading cause of death throughout the world which suffers from treatment failures mainly due to intensive toxicity and lack of effectiveness of conventional drugs. The application of nanotechnology in cancer treatment promises to overcome the drawbacks of conventional drugs/dosage forms and improve their therapeutic efficacy. Nanomaterials have novel properties that influence their in vivo performance. The biological behaviour of nanotechnology-based medicines in the body, which is different from the in vivo performance of conventional drug delivery systems, may provide benefits in pharmaceutical and/or clinical applications including, enhancements in solubility, stability, therapeutic efficacy, minimized side effects, and treatment of diseases. This paper discusses the unique characteristics and distinguished advantages of nanomaterials as anticancer drug carriers. Physicochemical properties of nanomaterials are critical parameters to their clinical translation. Hence, the impact of the main physicochemical properties on the efficacy of anticancer nanomaterials, which are found to effective for cancer treatment and/or diagnosis, are presented. It is important to have reliable and robust characterization techniques that could enable relate physicochemical properties of nanomaterials with their in vivo behaviour. Brief explanation of the different techniques that can be used for studying the various physicochemical characteristics of nanomaterials is given. An important consideration, to achieve fast and successful development of nanotechnology-based anticancer drug products, is assessment and optimization of physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties at the early stage. Obviously this requires collaboration among the different discovery and development scientists.

NIR‐responsive Fe3O4@PPy nanocomposite for efficient potential use in photothermal therapy

“…[54,55] The superparamagnetic properties of Fe 3 O 4 and binary Fe 3 O 4 @PPy nanocomposite with zero coercive field were examined by VSM analysis (Figure 3a). [21,56] For binary Fe 3 O 4 @PPy nanocomposite, in accordance with the previous studies about Fe 3 [36,57] The XRD diffraction pattern of Fe 3 O 4 @PPy nanocomposite is compatible with FTIR and UV-vis results, the nanocomposite structure contains all the characteristic peaks of Fe 3 O 4 and PPy NPs. This is an important finding showing that Fe 3 O 4 NPs can be effectively coated by the polymeric structure.…”

“…Recent developments in photothermal therapy (PTT) have attracted great deal of attention for its low cost, ease of procedure, no damage to healthy tissues, and faster recovery compared to conventional cancer therapy methods including chemotherapy, surgery, and radiotherapy having side effects and low efficiency. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] During PTT, photothermal agents convert near-infrared (NIR) light in the range 700 to 1,100 nm into heat energy that cause hyperthermia of cancer cells. In hyperthermia, the target tissue is exposed to high temperatures for certain periods, such as, 42 C for 15-60 min or over 50 C for 4-6 min, so it leads to death of the target issue.…”

Gold, Silver, and Palladium Nanoparticles: A Chemical Tool for Biomedical Applications

“…The bioinspired AuNPs have become a potential possibility to discover for use in biosensors, targeted drug delivery, photothermal therapies, immunoassays, photoimaging, and photodynamic therapy as shown in Figure 3. Interestingly, in human cancerous and cellular biology, several kinds of AuNPs such as Au nanorods, Au nanocages, Au-stars, nano Au-cubes, and Au nanospheres, have been considered as effective tools (Das et al, 2019;Filli et al, 2019;Pillai, 2019;Shrivastava et al, 2019). Despite all these assistances, the biocompatibility of AuNPs is a vital factor to be reconsidered for the interpretation of scientific applications.…”

Broadening and Enhancing Bacteriocins Activities by Association with Bioactive Substances

“…NPs may balance these weaknesses by enhancing these molecules stability and dispersibility, protecting them thereof from digestion and increasing their absorption into the bloodstream [76]. Thus, the combination between nanotechnology and biotechnology can lead to novel strategies, which can easily overcome these drawbacks especially in the biological systems [77]. Combinations of bacteriocins and NPs designed as nano-antibiotics formulations offer many incentives.…”