Nano-Drug Delivery Systems for Targeting the Tumor Microenvironment and Simultaneously Overcoming Drug Resistance Properties

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Delivery and Controlled Release".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 May 2024 | Viewed by 1856

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
UNIPRO—Oral Pathology and Rehabilitation Research Unit, University Institute of Health Sciences, CESPU, CRL, 4585-116 Gandra, Portugal
Interests: cancer cell metabolism; multidrug resistance in cancer cells; Pgp activity; pH regulators in cancer; new anticancer drugs
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
1. UNIPRO—Oral Pathology and Rehabilitation Research Unit, University Institute of Health Sciences (IUCS-CESPU), 4585-116 Gandra, Portugal
2. 1H-TOXRUN—One Health Toxicology Research Unit, University Institute of Health Sciences, CESPU, CRL, 4585-116 Gandra, Portugal
Interests: anticancer strategies; targeted therapy; cancer biomarkers; mitosis; apoptosis; drug discovery; bioactive compounds

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cancer is a complex disease and one of the most profound challenges to human health. Although new and innovative therapies have emerged throughout the years, the battle against cancer is often lost, with the treatment becoming ineffective and the disease recurring. One of the major obstacles in this fight is the resistance, innate or acquired, developed by cancer cells against the drugs commonly used in chemotherapy. Multidrug resistance, often abbreviated as MDR, is defined as a phenotype, intrinsic or developed during the treatment, where cells are resistant to multiple drugs with no obvious structural similarities and with different molecular targets. Different mechanisms can be involved in MDR, from intracellular adaptations (e.g., the expression of Pgp) to tumour microenvironment (TME) characteristics.

Endogenous stimulus-responsive nanosystems were developed based on the pathophysiological characteristics of the endogenous tumor microenvironment and have emerged as an effective cancer treatment, playing an increasingly important role in combating cancer drug resistance. These nanodrug delivery systems provide flexible and effective methods to overcome multidrug resistance by promoting cellular uptake, increasing drug accumulation, reducing drug efflux, improving targeted drug delivery, co-administering synergistic drugs, and increasing drugs’ half-life in the circulation, thereby improving the effectiveness of cancer treatment.

In this Special Issue, we aim to collect reviews or original manuscripts covering nanosystems with endogenous stimulus-responsive characteristics to overcome MDR and discussing their antitumor effects in vitro and in vivo.

Dr. Odília Queirós
Dr. Patrícia M. A. Silva
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • cancer therapy
  • multidrug resistance
  • mechanisms of drug resistance
  • tumor microenvironment
  • ABC transporters
  • combined therapy
  • drug delivery

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

27 pages, 6292 KiB  
Review
Improving the Efficacy of Common Cancer Treatments via Targeted Therapeutics towards the Tumour and Its Microenvironment
by Daniel Cecchi, Nolan Jackson, Wayne Beckham and Devika B. Chithrani
Pharmaceutics 2024, 16(2), 175; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics16020175 - 26 Jan 2024
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Abstract
Cancer is defined as the uncontrolled proliferation of heterogeneous cell cultures in the body that develop abnormalities and mutations, leading to their resistance to many forms of treatment. Left untreated, these abnormal cell growths can lead to detrimental and even fatal complications for [...] Read more.
Cancer is defined as the uncontrolled proliferation of heterogeneous cell cultures in the body that develop abnormalities and mutations, leading to their resistance to many forms of treatment. Left untreated, these abnormal cell growths can lead to detrimental and even fatal complications for patients. Radiation therapy is involved in around 50% of cancer treatment workflows; however, it presents significant recurrence rates and normal tissue toxicity, given the inevitable deposition of the dose to the surrounding healthy tissue. Chemotherapy is another treatment modality with excessive normal tissue toxicity that significantly affects patients’ quality of life. To improve the therapeutic efficacy of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, multiple conjunctive modalities have been proposed, which include the targeting of components of the tumour microenvironment inhibiting tumour spread and anti-therapeutic pathways, increasing the oxygen content within the tumour to revert the hypoxic nature of the malignancy, improving the local dose deposition with metal nanoparticles, and the restriction of the cell cycle within radiosensitive phases. The tumour microenvironment is largely responsible for inhibiting nanoparticle capture within the tumour itself and improving resistance to various forms of cancer therapy. In this review, we discuss the current literature surrounding the administration of molecular and nanoparticle therapeutics, their pharmacokinetics, and contrasting mechanisms of action. The review aims to demonstrate the advancements in the field of conjugated nanomaterials and radiotherapeutics targeting, inhibiting, or bypassing the tumour microenvironment to promote further research that can improve treatment outcomes and toxicity rates. Full article
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