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Review
. 2021 Feb:56:85-92.
doi: 10.1016/j.coph.2020.11.002. Epub 2020 Dec 17.

Nanotechnology in pulmonary medicine

Mohammad Doroudian  1 , Andrew O' Neill  2 , Ronan Mac Loughlin  3 , Adriele Prina-Mello  4 , Yuri Volkov  5 , Seamas C Donnelly  6
Affiliations
Review

Nanotechnology in pulmonary medicine

Mohammad Doroudian et al. Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2021 Feb.

Abstract

Nanotechnology in medicine-nanomedicine-is extensively employed to diagnose, treat, and prevent pulmonary diseases. Over the last few years, this brave new world has made remarkable progress, offering opportunities to address historical clinical challenges in pulmonary diseases including multidrug resistance, adverse side effects of conventional therapeutic agents, novel imaging, and earlier disease detection. Nanomedicine is also being applied to tackle the new emerging infectious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), influenza A virus subtype H1N1 (A/H1N1), and more recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In this review we provide both a historical overview of the application of nanomedicine to respiratory diseases and more recent cutting-edge approaches such as nanoparticle-mediated combination therapies, novel double-targeted nondrug delivery system for targeting, stimuli-responsive nanoparticles, and theranostic imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary diseases.

Keywords: Asthma; COVID- 19; Cystic fibrosis; Lung cancer; Nano carrier; Nanomedicine; Pneumonia; Respiratory disease; Tuberculosis.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Illustrative magnetic resonance images (MRI) of a transgenic mouse model with CF before and after treatment. Mice were treated twice weekly for 4 weeks with an inhaled lipid-based nano-drug delivery system carrying lumacaftor and ivacaftor. Healthy lung tissues are labeled in red, while fibrotic injured tissues are labeled in green. Reproduced with permission from Refs. [30].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic illustration of smart nano-drug delivery systems.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The biodistribution of a targeted nanoformulation against established subcutaneous H1299 tumor, a human non-small cell lung carcinoma cell in nu/nu mice (a) The biodistribution of targeted nano-drug delivery system from nonspecific distribution in 0 h time point to fully accumulated in the tumor in 16 h time points (b) The fluorescent image demonstrated a significant delivery of the nanoparticles in tumor tissue (green region). Reproduced with permission from Ref. [31].
Figure 4
Figure 4
The smart nanoparticle delivery system targeting intracellular organelle (mitochondria) achieved tumor penetration and inhibition effectively in a drug-resistant breast cancer-bearing mouse model with lung metastasis (a) Ex-vivo fluorescence images showing the distribution of drugs in the tumors and organs isolated from metastatic breast cancer in the lungs. Maximum tumor penetration was achieved by using mitochondria-targeted nanoparticles (white arrow), followed by untargeted nanoparticles, whereas, the free drug accumulated mostly in the liver and spleen (b) Tumor images following untreated (control), free drug (taxol), untargeted nano-drug delivery system (TP/PTX) and targeted nanoparticles (TPH/PTX) treatment arms (c) Tumor growth inhibition after intravenous injection with the three different treatment protocols [39].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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