Search

Background Nanotechnology based diagnostic and therapeutic approaches have attracted great interest in oncology over the last few years. Especially gold (Au)-based nanoformulations have gained a lot of attention in cancer detection, therapy and monitoring of outcome. The current report provides a summary of methods how to prepare different types of synthetic gold nanoformulations and their potential applications in boosting photothermal and photodynamic tumor therapies and in radiosensitization. Method A comprehensive review of the literature on the current status of gold nanoparticles preparation methods and their application for cancer therapy was performed. Results The intrinsic properties of the nanoparticles such as shape, size, electronic, optical, physicochemical and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) features could be precisely adjusted through various synthetic approaches depending on the further application of particles in biomedicine. According to various reports, gold nanoformulations have shown promising potential as adjuvants for photothermal and photodynamic therapies and as radiosensitizers for radiation therapy. Conclusion Synthetic development of gold nanoformulations became an important strategy in nanomedicine. Nanocomplexes demonstrated a therapeutic potential and could be translated into clinical strategies for cancer therapy.

Tumor microenvironment is so complex that involves in many factors of tumor. Although enhanced permeability and retention effect is a main driving force of tumor targeted nanoparticles, the tumor microenvironment greatly affects the delivery efficiency of nanoparticles.A careful search of the scientific database was performed to find the tumor microenvironment related papers. Then the papers were concluded and reviewed.In tumor, elevated interstitial fluid pressure, abnormal tumor vasculature, dense tumor extracellular matrix and elevated solid stress considerably hinder the extravasation and intratumor penetration of nanoparticles. Therefore, shaping the tumor microenvironment could improve nanoparticle delivery, including vascular normalization, vasculature promotion therapy, lymph normalization, reducing tumor stroma components, elevating blood pressure, elevating receptor expression, cell cycle arrest and priming by cytotoxic therapy.Shaping the tumor microenvironment could considerably enhance the nanoparticles delivery.

Liposomes are widely used as drug delivery systems and several liposome-based nanomedicines have been approved for clinical use. Cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) have been decorated onto nanoparticulated vesicle such as liposomes to further improve the intracellular delivery efficiency. However, the poor selectivity of CPPs hindered their application, especially in the in vivo application. To resolve this issue, several strategies have been developed, including shielding and environment-triggered deshielding of CPPs as well as designing of environment-responsive CPPs and specific- targeting CPPs and last but not least, combination strategy. In this review, the abovementioned strategies were discussed.

Targeted nanoparticulated drug delivery systems have gained much attention owing to their potential in elevating anti-tumor effect and decreasing drug-originated side effects. In this contribution, a kind of dual glioma targeting delivery system was developed through co-modification nanoparticles with interlukin-13 peptide (IL-13p) and RGD peptide (IRNPs), in which IL-13p could target to IL13Rα2 on tumor cells and RGD could target to αvβ3 on neovasculature. The model drug, docetaxel (DTX), could release from the unmodified nanoparticles (NPs) and IRNPs at a sustained manner. In vitro, the uptake of IRNPs by C6 (a glioma cell line) cells was time- and concentration-dependent, which was significantly higher than the uptake of NPs and single modified nanoparticles. After loading with DTX, IRNPs induced the highest percentage of apoptotic cells. In vivo, DTX-loaded IRNPs induced obviously higher apoptosis of cells in glioma site. These results indicated the dual modification could improve the cellular uptake as well as antitumor effect, which demonstrated IRNPs were promising drug delivery systems for glioma targeting treatment.