Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Targeted Chemophotothermal Treatment of Cancer Cells

摘要

Despite remarkable progress in cancer therapeutics, substantial impediments are still unresolved, such as severe adverse reactions and poor effectiveness against multidrug-resistant cancer cells. Most anticancer drugs exhibit high efficacy with a variety of solid tumors; however, nonspecific delivery leads to substantial toxicity to normal tissue and limits dosages of anticancer drugs to levels far below those required to destroy the tumor completely. To overcome these problems, various targeted drug deliveries and combined treatments to enhance the cytotoxic effect of anticancer drugs have been investigated. Regarding targeted delivery, molecular ligands such as antibodies, peptides, or small molecules have been used to recognize specific receptors on the surface of the tumor cell; various liposomes and nanomaterials conjugated with targeting ligands have been shown to achieve targeted delivery. One combined treatment with chemotherapy is thermo-chemotherapy. Heat treatment resonant nanomaterials have been reported to be superior to chemotherapy or photothermal treatment alone. Thus far, combinations of chemotherapy with hyperthermia and targeted delivery have been explored independently. However, were chemotherapy combined with both hyperthermia and targeted delivery, a higher therapeutic efficacy would be achieved by this triple combination in comparison with the pairwise combinations. In particular, if therapeutic antibodies were used as targeting ligands to specifically target the tumor cells and stimulate the immune system to attack them, simultaneous and efficient delivery of the targeting ligands, drug, and heat to the tumor would improve therapeutic efficacy and minimize side effects.