Biomimetic Nanoscale Erythrocyte Delivery System for Enhancing Chemotherapy via Overcoming Biological Barriers

Development and challenges of antimicrobial peptide delivery strategies in bacterial therapy: A review

The escalating global prevalence of antimicrobial resistance poses a critical threat, prompting concerns about its impact on public health. This predicament is exacerbated by the acute shortage of novel antimicrobial agents, a scarcity attributed to the rapid surge in bacterial resistance. This review delves into the realm of antimicrobial peptides, a diverse class of compounds ubiquitously present in plants and animals across various natural organisms. Renowned for their intrinsic antibacterial activity, these peptides provide a promising avenue to tackle the intricate challenge of bacterial resistance. However, the clinical utility of peptide-based drugs is hindered by limited bioavailability and susceptibility to rapid degradation, constraining efforts to enhance the efficacy of bacterial infection treatments. The emergence of nanocarriers marks a transformative approach poised to revolutionize peptide delivery strategies. This review elucidates a promising framework involving nanocarriers within the realm of antimicrobial peptides. This paradigm enables meticulous and controlled peptide release at infection sites by detecting dynamic shifts in microenvironmental factors, including pH, ROS, GSH, and reactive enzymes. Furthermore, a glimpse into the future reveals the potential of targeted delivery mechanisms, harnessing inflammatory responses and intricate signaling pathways, including adenosine triphosphate, macrophage receptors, and pathogenic nucleic acid entities. This approach holds promise in fortifying immunity, thereby amplifying the potency of peptide-based treatments. In summary, this review spotlights peptide nanosystems as prospective solutions for combating bacterial infections. By bridging antimicrobial peptides with advanced nanomedicine, a new therapeutic era emerges, poised to confront the formidable challenge of antimicrobial resistance head-on.

Current perspectives and trends in nanoparticle drug delivery systems in breast cancer: bibliometric analysis and review

The treatment of breast cancer (BC) is a serious challenge due to its heterogeneous nature, multidrug resistance (MDR), and limited therapeutic options. Nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems (NDDSs) represent a promising tool for overcoming toxicity and chemotherapy drug resistance in BC treatment. No bibliometric studies have yet been published on the research landscape of NDDS-based treatment of BC. In this review, we extracted data from 1,752 articles on NDDS-based treatment of BC published between 2012 and 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database. VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and some online platforms were used for bibliometric analysis and visualization. Publication trends were initially observed: in terms of geographical distribution, China and the United States had the most papers on this subject. The highest contributing institution was Sichuan University. In terms of authorship and co-cited authorship, the most prolific author was Yu Zhang. Furthermore, Qiang Zhang and co-workers have made tremendous achievements in the field of NDDS-based BC treatment. The article titled "Nanomedicine in cancer therapy: challenges, opportunities, and clinical applications" had the most citations. The Journal of Controlled Release was one of the most active publishers in the field. "Global cancer statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries" was the most cited reference. We also analysed "hot" and cutting-edge research for NDDSs in BC treatment. There were nine topic clusters: "tumour microenvironment," "nanoparticles (drug delivery)," "breast cancer/triple-negative breast cancer," "combination therapy," "drug release (pathway)," "multidrug resistance," "recent advance," "targeted drug delivery", and "cancer nanomedicine." We also reviewed the core themes of research. In summary, this article reviewed the application of NDDSs in the treatment of BC.

Red blood cells: a potential delivery system

Red blood cells (RBCs) are the most abundant cells in the body, possessing unique biological and physical properties. RBCs have demonstrated outstanding potential as delivery vehicles due to their low immunogenicity, long-circulating cycle, and immune characteristics, exhibiting delivery abilities. There have been several developments in understanding the delivery system of RBCs and their derivatives, and they have been applied in various aspects of biomedicine. This article compared the various physiological and physical characteristics of RBCs, analyzed their potential advantages in delivery systems, and summarized their existing practices in biomedicine.

Cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles for effective central nervous system target delivery: Insights and challenges

Central nervous system (CNS) disorders, including brain tumor, ischemic stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease, threaten human health. And the existence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) hinders the delivery of drugs and the design of drug targeting delivery vehicles. Over the past decades, great interest has been given to cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles since the rise of targeting drug delivery systems and biomimetic nanotechnology. Cell membranes are regarded as natural multifunction biomaterials, and provide potential for targeting delivery design and modification. Cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles appear timely with the participation of cell membranes and nanoparticles, and raises new lights for BBB recognition and transport, and effective therapy with its biological multifunction and high biocompatibility. This review summarizes existing challenges in CNS target delivery and recent advances of different kinds of cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles for effective CNS target delivery, and deliberates the BBB targeting mechanism. It also discusses the challenges and possibility of clinical translation, and presents new insights for development.

Erythrocyte-Inspired Functional Materials for Biomedical Applications

Erythrocytes are the most abundant cells in the blood. As the results of long-term natural selection, their specific biconcave discoid morphology and cellular composition are responsible for gaining excellent biological performance. Inspired by the intrinsic features of erythrocytes, various artificial biomaterials emerge and find broad prospects in biomedical applications such as therapeutic delivery, bioimaging, and tissue engineering. Here, a comprehensive review from the fabrication to the applications of erythrocyte-inspired functional materials is given. After summarizing the biomaterials mimicking the biological functions of erythrocytes, the synthesis strategies of particles with erythrocyte-inspired morphologies are presented. The emphasis is on practical biomedical applications of these bioinspired functional materials. The perspectives for the future possibilities of the advanced erythrocyte-inspired biomaterials are also discussed. It is hoped that the summary of existing studies can inspire researchers to develop novel biomaterials; thus, accelerating the progress of these biomaterials toward clinical biomedical applications.

Evaluation of CTB-sLip for Targeting Lung Metastasis of Colorectal Cancer

Lung metastasis of colorectal cancer is common in the clinic; however, precise targeting for the diagnosis and therapy purposes of those lung metastases remains challenging. Herein, cholera toxin subunit b (CTB) protein was chemically conjugated on the surface of PEGylated liposomes (CTB-sLip). Both human-derived colorectal cancer cell lines, HCT116 and HT-29, demonstrated high binding affinity and cellular uptake with CTB-sLip. In vivo, CTB-sLip exhibited elevated targeting capability to the lung metastasis of colorectal cancer in the model nude mice in comparison to PEGylated liposomes (sLip) without CTB modification. CTB conjugation induced ignorable effects on the interaction between liposomes and plasma proteins but significantly enhanced the uptake of liposomes by numerous blood cells and splenic cells, leading to relatively rapid blood clearance in BALB/c mice. Even though repeated injections of CTB-sLip induced the production of anti-CTB antibodies, our results suggested CTB-sLip as promising nanocarriers for the diagnosis of lung metastasis of colorectal cancer.