Functional Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Biology and Medicines".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 November 2024 | Viewed by 3549

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nanomaterials offer an innovative nano-platform for drug delivery and have prompted the development of nanomedicine in cancer therapy. They are valuable tools used for the delivery of therapeutic agents to enhance therapeutic efficacy compared with traditional methods. However, nanomaterials suffer from many challenges in clinical applications, such as fast clearance from the blood stream after injection and poor tumor-targeting abilities. Therefore, developing functional nanomaterials with a prolonged circulation time and high tumor-targeting ability is highly desired. For this purpose, nanomaterials could be administered using advanced surface functionalization and synthesis strategies to incorporate biomolecules, drugs, or metal nanoparticles. Furthermore, to overcome drug resistance and tumor metastasis, it is also highly desirable to develop functional nanomaterials that can combine multimodal cancer therapeutic modalities, such as chemotherapy, photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, chemodynamic therapy, starving therapy, and immunotherapy. In this Special Issue, I am pleased to invite you to submit original research articles and reviews articles that discuss the combined use of nanomaterials with functionalized molecules (drugs, natural compounds, biomolecules, polymers, metal nanoparticles, etc.) for cancer therapy application.

Prof. Dr. Jyh-Ping Chen
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • nanoparticles
  • nanomedicine
  • targeted delivery
  • cancer therapy
  • chemotherapy
  • phototherapy
  • chemodynamic therapy
  • starving therapy
  • immunotherapy

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 1648 KiB  
Article
Novel ST1926 Nanoparticle Drug Formulation Enhances Drug Therapeutic Efficiency in Colorectal Cancer Xenografted Mice
by Sara Assi, Berthe Hayar, Claudio Pisano, Nadine Darwiche and Walid Saad
Nanomaterials 2024, 14(17), 1380; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano14171380 - 23 Aug 2024
Viewed by 805
Abstract
Cancer is a major public health problem that ranks as the second leading cause of death. Anti-cancer drug development presents with various hurdles faced throughout the process. Nanoparticle (NP) formulations have emerged as a promising strategy for enhancing drug delivery efficiency, improving stability, [...] Read more.
Cancer is a major public health problem that ranks as the second leading cause of death. Anti-cancer drug development presents with various hurdles faced throughout the process. Nanoparticle (NP) formulations have emerged as a promising strategy for enhancing drug delivery efficiency, improving stability, and reducing drug toxicity. Previous studies have shown that the adamantyl retinoid ST1926 displays potent anti-tumor activities in several types of tumors, particularly in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, phase I clinical trials in cancer patients using ST1926 are halted due to its low bioavailability. In this manuscript, we developed ST1926-NPs using flash nanoprecipitation with polystyrene-b-poly (ethyleneoxide) as an amphiphilic stabilizer and cholesterol as a co-stabilizer. Dynamic light scattering revealed that the resulting ST1926-NPs Contin diameter was 97 nm, with a polydispersity index of 0.206. Using cell viability, cell cycle analysis, and cell death assays, we showed that ST1926-NP exhibited potent anti-tumor activities in human CRC HCT116 cells. In a CRC xenograft model, mice treated with ST1926-NP exhibited significantly lowered tumor volumes compared to controls at low drug concentrations and enhanced the delivery of ST1926 to the tumors. These findings highlight the potential of ST1926-NPs in attenuating CRC tumor growth, facilitating its further development in clinical settings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy)
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Review

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30 pages, 3709 KiB  
Review
Functionalized Nanomaterials for Inhibiting ATP-Dependent Heat Shock Proteins in Cancer Photothermal/Photodynamic Therapy and Combination Therapy
by Thejas P. Premji, Banendu Sunder Dash, Suprava Das and Jyh-Ping Chen
Nanomaterials 2024, 14(1), 112; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano14010112 - 2 Jan 2024
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2333
Abstract
Phototherapies induced by photoactive nanomaterials have inspired and accentuated the importance of nanomedicine in cancer therapy in recent years. During these light-activated cancer therapies, a nanoagent can produce heat and cytotoxic reactive oxygen species by absorption of light energy for photothermal therapy (PTT) [...] Read more.
Phototherapies induced by photoactive nanomaterials have inspired and accentuated the importance of nanomedicine in cancer therapy in recent years. During these light-activated cancer therapies, a nanoagent can produce heat and cytotoxic reactive oxygen species by absorption of light energy for photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT). However, PTT is limited by the self-protective nature of cells, with upregulated production of heat shock proteins (HSP) under mild hyperthermia, which also influences PDT. To reduce HSP production in cancer cells and to enhance PTT/PDT, small HSP inhibitors that can competitively bind at the ATP-binding site of an HSP could be employed. Alternatively, reducing intracellular glucose concentration can also decrease ATP production from the metabolic pathways and downregulate HSP production from glucose deprivation. Other than reversing the thermal resistance of cancer cells for mild-temperature PTT, an HSP inhibitor can also be integrated into functionalized nanomaterials to alleviate tumor hypoxia and enhance the efficacy of PDT. Furthermore, the co-delivery of a small-molecule drug for direct HSP inhibition and a chemotherapeutic drug can integrate enhanced PTT/PDT with chemotherapy (CT). On the other hand, delivering a glucose-deprivation agent like glucose oxidase (GOx) can indirectly inhibit HSP and boost the efficacy of PTT/PDT while combining these therapies with cancer starvation therapy (ST). In this review, we intend to discuss different nanomaterial-based approaches that can inhibit HSP production via ATP regulation and their uses in PTT/PDT and cancer combination therapy such as CT and ST. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy)
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