Nanocarriers-Mediated Drug Delivery Systems for Anticancer Agents: An Overview and Perspectives

Abstract

Nanotechnology has been actively integrated as drug carriers over the last few years to treat various cancers. The main hurdle in the clinical management of cancer is the development of multidrug resistance against chemotherapeutic agents. To overcome the limitations of chemotherapy, the researchers have been developing technological advances for significant progress in the oncotherapy by enabling the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents at increased drug content levels to the targeted spots. Several nano-drug delivery systems designed for tumor-targeting are evaluated in preclinical and clinical trials and showed promising outcomes in cancerous tumors' clinical management. This review describes nanocarrier's importance in managing different types of cancers and emphasizing nanocarriers for drug delivery and cancer nanotherapeutics. It also highlights the recent advances in nanocarriers-based delivery systems, including polymeric nanocarriers, micelles, nanotubes, dendrimers, magnetic nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles, and quantum dots (QDs). The nanocarrier-based composites are discussed in terms of their structure, characteristics, and therapeutic applications in oncology. To conclude, the challenges and future exploration opportunities of nanocarriers in chemotherapeutics are also presented.

Keywords: anticancer agents; chemotherapy; multidrug resistance; nanomaterials; recent advances.

Figure 1

Various types of nanocarriers used to treat the malignant tumors.

Figure 2

Determination of the antitumor activity of UA-PMs on H-22 xenograft model. The mice induced with the H-22 tumor were treated with different formulations. Outcomes measured the significant changes in the volume of tumor-induced in mice (A), changes in the weight of tumor (B), a curve showing the time of survival for the tumor-bearing mice (C), mean of the survival time (D) and weight of mice. Data are shown as the mean ± SD in each group (n=5). Significant differences were observed between treated groups and saline (*P< 0.05, **P< 0.01), treated groups and 5-FU group (#P< 0.05, ##P< 0.01), UA and UA-PMs (^★P < 0.05) at the concentration of 50 mg/kg. Adapted from Zhou M, Yi Y, Liu L, et al. Polymeric micelles loading with ursolic acid enhancing antitumor effect on hepatocellular carcinoma. J Cancer. 2019;10(23):5820. Creative Commons.

Figure 3

Heterodimeric multifunctional prodrug loaded NPs facilitated effective drug distribution to tumor and synergistic tumor chemotherapy and photodynamic therapy. (A) PET images showing the whole body of tumor-induced mice. Accumulation of NPs in tumors has been marked with white circles. (B) Quantification of the drug in tumor measured from decay-corrected PET images (n=3). (C) Ex vivo drug dissemination quantified by γ-counting of excised tissues at 48 h after the injection (n=3). (D) The volume distribution of tumor under the influence of treatment (n=5). Black arrow is a sign of intravenous injection of drugs, while red arrow reflects laser irradiation. Asterisk signs indicate the significant differences between CPT-ss-HPPH NPs and the other treatments. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. *p<0.001. Adapted with permission from Zhang F, Ni Q, Jacobson O, et al. Polymeric nanoparticles with a glutathione‐sensitive heterodimeric multifunctional prodrug for in vivo drug monitoring and synergistic cancer therapy. Angewandte Chemie Int Edition. 2018;57(24):7066–7070. © 2018 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Figure 4

A schematic illustration of surfactant coating of solid lipid nanoparticles.

Figure 5

Magnetic resonance imaging of iron oxide nanoparticles based chemotherapy. (A) Scheme of development of gemcitabine conjugated iron oxide nanoparticles. (B) MRI observation of the therapeutic response of controlled released gemcitabine. (C) Histologic staining endorses the targeted therapeutic of pancreatic tumor. Adapted with permission from Lee GY, Qian WP, Wang L, et al. Theranostic nanoparticles with controlled release of gemcitabine for targeted therapy and MRI of pancreatic cancer. ACS Nano. 2013;7(3):2078–2089. Copyright © 2013, American Chemical Society.