Nanoparticle delivery of natural products in the prevention and treatment of cancers: current status and future prospects

Abstract

The advent of nanotechnology has had a revolutionary impact on many aspects of 21st century life. Nanotechnology has provided an opportunity to explore new avenues that conventional technologies have been unable to make an impact on for diagnosis, prevention, and therapy of different diseases, and of cancer in particular. Entities in nanometer sizes are excellent platforms to incorporate various drugs or active materials that can be delivered effectively to the desired action site without compromising the activity of the incorporated drug or material. In particular, nanotechnology entities can be used to deliver conventional natural products that have poor solubility or a short half life. Conventional natural products used with entities in nanometer sizes enable us to solve many of the inherent problems (stability, solubility, toxicity) associated with natural products, and also provide a platform for targeted delivery to tumor sites. We recently introduced the novel concept of using nanotechnology for enhancing the outcome of chemoprevention, which we called 'nanochemoprevention'. This idea was subsequently exploited by several laboratories worldwide and has now become an advancing field in chemoprevention research. This review examines some of the applications of nanotechnology for cancer prevention and therapy using natural products.