Versatile carbon nanoplatforms for cancer treatment and diagnosis: strategies, applications and future perspectives

Abstract

Despite the encouraging breakthroughs in medical development, cancer remains one of the principle causes of death and threatens human health around the world. Conventional treatment strategies often kill cancer cells at the expense of serious adverse effects or great pain, which yet is not able to achieve an effective cure. Therefore, it is urgent to seek for other novel anticancer approaches to improve the survival rate and life quality of cancer patients. During the past decades, nanotechnology has made tremendous progress in cancer therapy due to many advantages such as targeted drug delivery, decreased dosage-related adverse effects and prolonged drug circulation time. In the context of nanomedicine, carbon nanomaterials occupy very significant positions. Owing to their innate outstanding optical, thermal, electronic, and mechanic features, easy functionalization possibility and large surface for drug loading, carbon nanomaterials serve as not only drug carriers, but also multifunctional platforms to combine with diverse treatment and diagnosis modalities against cancer. Therefore, developing more carbon-based nanoplatforms plays a critical role in cancer theranostics and an update overview that summarizes the recent achievement of carbon nanomaterial-mediated anticancer theranostic approaches is of necessity. In this review, five typical and widely investigated carbon nanomaterials including graphene, graphdiyne, fullerene, carbon nanotubes and carbon quantum dots are introduced in detail from the aspect of treatment strategies based on both cancer cells and tumor microenvironment-involved therapeutic targets. Meanwhile, modern diagnostic methods and clinical translatability of carbon nanomaterials will be highlighted as well.

Quenching of Protein Fluorescence by Fullerenol C60(OH)36 Nanoparticles

“…The obtained results may be of practical importance in biological sciences in terms of the use of FUL as a drug carrier or a contrast agent in bioimaging [ 57 , 58 ], because the binding of drugs by albumin plays a key role in the pharmacokinetics of many drugs and their distribution in the body. Albumin is a natural carrier of many drugs, and knowledge on the binding ability of FUL to HSA may define new pathways in biomedicine.…”

Multifunctional nanoparticle for cancer therapy

“… 481 , 482 The advantages of PAI include high resolution, strong contrast, and deep penetration, with excellent development potential in cancer therapy. 483 , 484 Multifunctional nanoparticles are added with ultrasound for tracking drug release with PAI‐guided cancer therapy. 485 In detail, multifunctional nanoparticles with light absorption and high photothermal conversion efficiency could achieve PAI, such as inorganic materials (BP quantum dots).…”

“…This region of the biological tissue expands outward and generates acoustic waves to form a photoacoustic signal 481,482 . The advantages of PAI include high resolution, strong contrast, and deep penetration, with excellent development potential in cancer therapy 483,484 . Multifunctional nanoparticles are added with ultrasound for tracking drug release with PAI‐guided cancer therapy 485 .…”

A pH/ROS dual-responsive nanoparticle system for tumor targeting combined chemotherapy/phototherapy

“…At the same time, the disadvantages and limitations of single therapy make it meaningful to construct a multi-functional or multimechanism drug delivery system for collaborative treatment. 15,20 PTT uses light absorbers to generate heat under near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation to cause the thermal ablation of tumor cells, 21 and PDT mainly relies on the activation of photosensitizers under light to produce cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS), both of which constitute irreversible damage to tumor cells. 22,23 Indocyanine green (ICG), as a FDA certified medical NIR imaging agent, has been widely used in PTT.…”