Nanocarrier-based Drug Delivery System for Cancer Therapeutics: A Review of the Last Decade

Abstract

: In recent years, due to the shortcomings of conventional chemotherapy, such as poor bioavailability, low treatment index and unclear side effects, the focus of cancer research has shifted to new nanocarriers of chemotherapeutic drugs. By using biodegradable materials, nanocarriers generally have the advantages of good biocompatibility, low side effects, targeting, controlled release profile, and improved efficacy. And more to the point, nanocarrier based anti-cancer drug delivery systems clearly show the potential to overcome the problems associated with conventional chemotherapy. In order to promote the deepening of research and development in this field, we herein summarized and analyzed various nanocarrier based drug delivery systems for cancer therapy, including the concepts, types, characteristics and preparation methods. The active and passive targeting mechanisms of cancer therapy were also included, along with a brief introduction of the research progress of nanocarriers used for anti-cancer drug delivery in the past decade.

Complex polymeric nanomicelles co-delivering doxorubicin and dimethoxycurcumin for cancer chemotherapy

“…Amphiphilic copolymers have attracted significant interest as their self-assembly (size and morphology) in an aqueous solution can be precisely modulated (Sohail et al., 2021c ). As a kind of diblock copolymer, mPEG-PLA is composed of the most common hydrophilic segment mPEG, and biodegradable hydrophobic material polylactic acid (PLA) approved by the FDA and has been extensively used for preparing polymeric micelles due to good biocompatibility and biodegradation.…”

“…There are several drawbacks of systemic administration of a single chemotherapeutic, and the combination therapy is sequentially developed to overcome multi-drug resistance and side effects because of using a lower concentration of each drug (Zhang et al., 2016 ; Bayat et al, 2017 ; Ramasamy et al 2017 ). Currently, a variety of nanotechnologies have been extensively applied to improve delivery systems for cancer treatment (Zhou et al., 2020 ; Li et al., 2021a ; Li et al., 2021b ; Sohail et al., 2021c ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). Co-loading of multiple anti-cancer drugs into a single nanocarrier system provides a logical approach to combination therapy, and various collections of nanocarriers are included, for example, liposomes, dendrimers, nanoparticles, micelles etc.…”

“…The amphiphilic diblock copolymer of monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol) (mPEG)-poly(lactic acid) (PLA), mPEG-PLA has been approved by the FDA was used as a drug carrier. Both the formulation and process conditions were optimized as per the demand of the standard clinical application of DOX-related chemotherapy via nanomicelles, mainly including high drug loading capacity, good colloidal stability, and tissue-targeting feature (Li et al., 2020 ; Sohail et al, 2021b ; 2021c ). After a systemic characterization, the mechanism of drugs encapsulation into CPM-DD was investigated by molecular dynamic simulation, and the therapeutic potential was evaluated by a set of tests in vitro and in vivo .…”

An Up‐to‐Date Review on Alginate Nanoparticles and Nanofibers for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Applications

“…To overcome such limits, nanocarriers have nowadays gained a great deal of interest for their capability to improve the aqueous solubility, pharmacodynamic, and pharmacokinetic profile of chemotherapy drugs meanwhile decreasing their concentration in non-targeted normal tissues. [174][175][176] However, nanocarriers are commonly associated with several drawbacks such as poor biodegradation, bioavailability, stability, tissue distribution, and toxicity, thus causing safety concerns especially for long-term cancer treatments. In this sense, among the broad variety of materials that can be used for this purpose, alginate, due to its unique physicalchemical and biological properties, has shown relevant promises in the development of highly effective chemotherapy nanocarriers.…”

Fluid Films as Models for Understanding the Impact of Inhaled Particles in Lung Surfactant Layers

“…Therefore, any dysfunction on the LS mechanical properties or modification of its composition may be harmful for health [32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. However, to date there is an important lack of knowledge about the true impact of inhaled particles in the respiratory cycle, even though it is clear that the deposition of particles on LS alters the breathing mechanics, the use of particles, even inhaled ones, in therapy and diagnosis is undergoing continuous growth [39][40][41][42][43]. Therefore, it is necessary to deepen the current understanding of the interactions of different types of particulate pollutants with LS for predicting their potential toxicity [44][45][46].…”