Carbon Nanomaterials for Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy

Abstract

Nanotechnology is one of the most exciting disciplines and it incorporates physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology. It can be applied to design cancer medicines with improved therapeutic indices. At the basic level, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene are sp2 carbon nanomaterials. Their unique physical and chemical properties make them interesting candidates of research in a wide range of areas including biological systems and different diseases. Recent research has been focused on exploring the potential of the CNTs as a carrier or vehicle for intracellular transport of drugs, proteins, and targeted genes in vitro and in vivo. Several research groups are actively involved to find out a functional CNT carrier capable of transporting targeted drug molecules in animal models with least toxicity. Current investigations are also focused on graphene, an allotrope of carbon, which appears to be a promising agent for successful delivery of biomolecules in various animal models. But potential clinical implementations of CNTs are still hampered by distinctive barriers such as poor bioavailability and intrinsic toxicity, which pose difficulties in tumor targeting and penetration as well as in improving therapeutic outcome. This article presents recent progresses in the design and evaluation of closely related CNTs for experimental cancer therapy and explores their implications in bringing nanomedicines into the clinics.

Carbon Nanotubes as an Effective Opportunity for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

“…Recently, several novel non-viral vectors have been developed that approach viruses with respect to transfection efficiency [151]. Among these, CNTs attracted much interest due to their ability to easily penetrate the cellular membrane and low immunogenicity [128,152,153,154,155]. For example, in a continuation of a previous study about tumor apoptosis, delayed tumor growth and prolonged survival of human lung xenograft-bearing mice after intratumoral administration of small interfering RNA (siRNA)-functionalized MWCNTs complexes [156], Guo et al functionalized MWCNTs with a proper siRNA, whose effect is the inhibition of polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) that is predicted to block the reproduction of cancer cells (lung cancer in this case).…”

Sub-Acute Toxicity Study of Graphene Oxide in the Sprague-Dawley Rat

“…Carbon nanomaterials exist in nature in multiple forms and are used in science and technology as materials for drug/gene delivery [1], cell imaging [2], biosensing [3], and cancer therapy [4]. Graphene was first isolated from graphite in 2004 [5] and graphene oxide (GO) is an oxidized derivative of graphene ranging from 10 nm to 1 μm with numerous hydroxyl, carbonyl, and carboxyl epoxy groups randomly distributed on the surface [6,7], giving it unique properties.…”

Delivery of a chemotherapeutic drug using novel hollow carbon spheres for esophageal cancer treatment

“…Therefore, researchers have shifted their focus from inorganic to organic nanomaterials, such as poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), 10,11 chitosan, 12 polypeptides, 13 liposomes, 14 silk fibroin, 15 lipids, [16][17][18] and carbon-based nanomaterials. 19,20 Recently, carbon nanomaterials including carbon nanotubes, 21 carbon nanohorns (CNHs), 22 carbon nanodiamonds, 23 and graphene (GN) 24 have been studied for applications in drug delivery, owing to their excellent biocompatibility, superhydrophilicity, cell internalization property, enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, and flexibility toward surface modifications. Yao et al developed a highly specific gastric cancer stem cell (CSC)-targeting drug delivery system based on single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), which could selectively and effectively eliminate gastric CSCs.…”