Establishment of a hTfR mAb-functionalized HPPS theranostic nanoplatform

Advances in Nanotheranostic Systems for Concurrent Cancer Imaging and Therapy: An Overview of the Last 5 Years

The rapid development of nanotechnology during the last two decades has created new opportunities to design and generate more advanced nanotheranostics with diversified capabilities for diagnosis, drug delivery, and treatment response monitoring in a single platform. To date, several approaches have been employed in order to develop nanotheranostics. The purpose of this review is to briefly discuss the key components of nanotheranostic systems, to present the conventional and upcoming imaging and therapeutic modalities that employ nanotheranostic systems, and to evaluate recent progress in the field of cancer nanotheranostic systems in the past five years (2020-2024). Special attention is focused on the design of cancer nanotheranostic systems, their composition, specificity, potential for multimodal imaging and therapy, and in vitro and in vivo characterization.

Advances in nanotechnology-based platforms for survivin-targeted drug discovery

INTRODUCTION

Due to its unique functional impact on multiple cancer cell circuits including proliferation, apoptosis, tumor dissemination, DNA damage repair and immune response, the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) survivin has gained high interest as a molecular target and a multitude of therapeutics were developed to interfere with survivin expression and functionality. First clinical evaluations of these therapeutics, however, were disappointing highlighting the need to develop advanced delivery systems of survivin-targeting molecules to increase stability, bioavailability as well as the selective guidance to tumor tissue.

AREAS COVERED

: This review focuses on advancements in nanocarriers to molecularly target survivin in human malignancies. A plethora of nanoparticle platforms, including liposomes, polymeric systems, dendrimers, inorganic nanocarriers, RNA/DNA nanotechnology and exosomes are discussed in the background of survivin-tailored RNA interference, small molecule inhibitors, dominant negative mutants or survivin vaccination or combined modality treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs and photo- dynamic/photothermal strategies.

EXPERT OPINION

Novel therapeutic approaches include the use of biocompatible nanoformulations carrying gene silencing or drug molecules to directly or indirectly target proteins, allow for a more precise and controlled delivery of survivin therapeutics. Moreover, surface modification of these nanocarriers may result in a tumor entity specific delivery. Therefore, nanomedicine exploiting survivin-tailored strategies in a multimodal background is considered the way forwaerd to enhance the development of future personalized medicine.

Lipid Nanoparticles as Platforms for Theranostic Purposes: Recent Advances in the Field

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the first approved nanomedicines and the most well-studied class of nanocarriers for drug delivery. Currently, they are in the frontline of the pandemic fight as vaccine formulations and therapeutic products. However, even though they are so well-studied, new materials and new modifications arise every day that can improve their properties. Their dynamic nature, especially the liquid crystal state of membranes, is under constant investigation and it is that which many times leads to their complex biological behavior. In addition, newly discovered biomaterials and nanoparticles that possess promising effects and functionalities, but also toxicity and/or poor pharmacokinetics, can be combined with LNPs to ameliorate their properties. As a result, many promising theranostic applications have emerged during the past decade, proving the huge potential of LNPs in the field. In the present review, we summarize some of the most prominent classes of LNPs for nanotheranostic purposes, and present state-of-the-art research examples, with emphasis on the utilized biomaterials and the functionality that they confer to the resultant supramolecular nanosystems, in relation to diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. Although there has been unprecedented progress in theranostics, the translational gap between the bench and the clinic is undeniable. This issue must be addressed by experts in a coordinated way, in order to fully exploit these nanomedicines for the benefit of the society.

Recent Progress in Lipid Nanoparticles for Cancer Theranostics: Opportunity and Challenges

Cancer is one of the major leading causes of mortality in the world. The implication of nanotherapeutics in cancer has garnered splendid attention owing to their capability to efficiently address various difficulties associated with conventional drug delivery systems such as non-specific biodistribution, poor efficacy, and the possibility of occurrence of multi-drug resistance. Amongst a plethora of nanocarriers for drugs, this review emphasized lipidic nanocarrier systems for delivering anticancer therapeutics because of their biocompatibility, safety, high drug loading and capability to simultaneously carrying imaging agent and ligands as well. Furthermore, to date, the lack of interaction between diagnosis and treatment has hampered the efforts of the nanotherapeutic approach alone to deal with cancer effectively. Therefore, a novel paradigm with concomitant imaging (with contrasting agents), targeting (with biomarkers), and anticancer agent being delivered in one lipidic nanocarrier system (as cancer theranostics) seems to be very promising in overcoming various hurdles in effective cancer treatment. The major obstacles that are supposed to be addressed by employing lipidic theranostic nanomedicine include nanomedicine reach to tumor cells, drug internalization in cancer cells for therapeutic intervention, off-site drug distribution, and uptake via the host immune system. A comprehensive account of recent research updates in the field of lipidic nanocarrier loaded with therapeutic and diagnostic agents is covered in the present article. Nevertheless, there are notable hurdles in the clinical translation of the lipidic theranostic nanomedicines, which are also highlighted in the present review along with plausible countermeasures.

The Transferrin Receptor-Directed CAR for the Therapy of Hematologic Malignancies

As many patients ultimately relapse after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, identification of alternative targets is currently being evaluated. Substantial research efforts are underway to develop new targets. The transferrin receptor (TfR) is prevalently expressed on rapidly proliferating tumor cells and holds the potential to be the alternative target. In order to investigate the efficacy and challenges of TfR-targeting on the CAR-based therapy strategy, we generated a TfR-specific CAR and established the TfR-CAR–modified T cells. To take the advantage of TfR being widely shared by multiple tumors, TfR-CAR T cells were assessed against several TfR⁺ hematological malignant cell lines. Data showed that TfR-CAR T cells were powerfully potent in killing all these types of cells in vitro and in killing T-ALL cells in vivo. These findings suggest that TfR could be a universal target to broaden and improve the therapeutic efficacy of CAR T cells and warrant further efforts to use these cells as an alternative CAR T cell product for the therapy of hematological malignancies.

DNA Nanostructures and DNA-Functionalized Nanoparticles for Cancer Theranostics

In the last two decades, DNA has attracted significant attention toward the development of materials at the nanoscale for emerging applications due to the unparalleled versatility and programmability of DNA building blocks. DNA-based artificial nanomaterials can be broadly classified into two categories: DNA nanostructures (DNA-NSs) and DNA-functionalized nanoparticles (DNA-NPs). More importantly, their use in nanotheranostics, a field that combines diagnostics with therapy via drug or gene delivery in an all-in-one platform, has been applied extensively in recent years to provide personalized cancer treatments. Conveniently, the ease of attachment of both imaging and therapeutic moieties to DNA-NSs or DNA-NPs enables high biostability, biocompatibility, and drug loading capabilities, and as a consequence, has markedly catalyzed the rapid growth of this field. This review aims to provide an overview of the recent progress of DNA-NSs and DNA-NPs as theranostic agents, the use of DNA-NSs and DNA-NPs as gene and drug delivery platforms, and a perspective on their clinical translation in the realm of oncology.