Self‐assembled nanovehicle for intracellular enzyme‐triggered antitumor drug release

Cyclodextrin based nanoparticles for smart drug delivery in colorectal cancer

The advancement of colorectal cancer (CRC) prevention, detection, and treatment is essential to ensure that survivors live longer and higher-quality lives. The field of cancer detection and therapy has undergone a revolution with the development of nanotechnology for targeted drug delivery. The significant problems with the delivery of cancer drugs are their solubility, stability, and nonspecific distribution. There is a challenge that the acidic and enzymatic environment in the digestive tract will modify or destroy the medication or the active pharmaceutical ingredient. To overcome the problems, nanoparticles have been widely employed during the past several years to increase the specificity, selectivity, and controlled release of drug delivery systems. The site-specific and targeted delivery leads to reduce toxicity and side effects. With respect to the capability and utilization of cyclodextrin-based nanoparticles in different aspects of the tumour microenvironment and gut microbiota, a survey of current research papers was conducted via looking through databases including GoogleScholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. This review aims to summarize cutting-edge nanoparticulate-based technologies and therapies for CRC.

Hyaluronidase-trigger nanocarriers for targeted delivery of anti-liver cancer compound

Chemotherapy is recognized as one of the significant treatment methods for liver cancer. The compound celastrol (CSL) could effectively inhibit the proliferation, migration, and invasion of liver cancer cells, which is regarded as a promising candidate to become a mainstream anti-liver cancer drug. However, the application of CSL in liver cancer chemotherapy is limited due to its systemic toxicity, poor water solubility, multidrug resistance, premature degradation, and lack of tumor targeting. Meanwhile, in order to comply with the current concept of precision medicine, precisely targeted delivery of the anti-liver compound CSL was desired. This paper takes into account that liver cancer cells were equipped with hyaluronic acid (HA) receptors (CD44) on their surface and overexpressed. Hyaluronidase (HAase) capable of degrading HA, HAase-responsive nanocarriers (NCs), named HA/(MI)₇-β-CD NCs, were prepared based on the electrostatic interaction between HA and imidazole moieties modified β-cyclodextrin (MI)₇-β-CD. HA/(MI)₇-β-CD NCs showed disassembly properties under HAase stimuli, which was utilized to trap, deliver, and the controllable release of the anti-liver cancer compound CSL. Furthermore, cytotoxicity assay experiments revealed that CSL-trapped HA/(MI)₇-β-CD NCs not only reduced cytotoxicity for normal cells but also effectively inhibited the survival for five tumor cells, and even the apoptotic effect of CSL-trapped NCs with a concentration of 5 μg mL^-1 on tumor cells (SMMC-7721) was consistent with free CSL. Cell uptake experiments demonstrated HA/(MI)₇-β-CD NCs possessed the capability of targeted drug delivery to cancerous cells. HA/(MI)₇-β-CD NCs exhibited site-specific and controllable release performance, which is anticipated to proceed further in precision-targeted drug delivery systems.

β-Cyclodextrin-based supramolecular nanoparticles: pH-sensitive nanocarriers for the sustained release of anti-tumor drugs

CSL-loaded SBE7-β-CD/HDBAC nanoparticles present pH-trigger controlled release properties, which may enhence the therapeutic effects of the anti-tumor compound CSL.