Liposomal Irinotecan for Treatment of Colorectal Cancer in a Preclinical Model

Meta-Analysis of Nanoparticle Distribution in Tumors and Major Organs in Tumor-Bearing Mice

Low tumor delivery efficiency is a critical barrier in cancer nanomedicine. This study reports an updated version of "Nano-Tumor Database", which increases the number of time-dependent concentration data sets for different nanoparticles (NPs) in tumors from the previous version of 376 data sets with 1732 data points from 200 studies to the current version of 534 data sets with 2345 data points from 297 studies published from 2005 to 2021. Additionally, the current database includes 1972 data sets for five major organs (i.e., liver, spleen, lung, heart, and kidney) with a total of 8461 concentration data points. Tumor delivery and organ distribution are calculated using three pharmacokinetic parameters, including delivery efficiency, maximum concentration, and distribution coefficient. The median tumor delivery efficiency is 0.67% injected dose (ID), which is low but is consistent with previous studies. Employing the best regression model for tumor delivery efficiency, we generate hypothetical scenarios with different combinations of NP factors that may lead to a higher delivery efficiency of >3%ID, which requires further experimentation to confirm. In healthy organs, the highest NP accumulation is in the liver (10.69%ID/g), followed by the spleen 6.93%ID/g and the kidney 3.22%ID/g. Our perspective on how to facilitate NP design and clinical translation is presented. This study reports a substantially expanded "Nano-Tumor Database" and several statistical models that may help nanomedicine design in the future.

Nanoparticles Loaded with Platinum Drugs for Colorectal Cancer Therapy

Colorectal cancer is a common cancer in both men and women. Numerous studies on the therapeutic effectiveness of nanoparticles against colorectal cancer have been reported. Platinum treatments as well as other medications comprising of nanoparticles have been utilized. Drug resistance restricts the use of platinum medicines, despite their considerable efficacy against a variety of cancers. This review reports clinically licensed platinum medicines (cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin) combined with various nanoparticles that have been evaluated for their therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of colorectal cancer, including their mechanism of action, resistance, and limitations.

Functionalized FcRn-targeted nanosystems for oral drug delivery: A new approach to colorectal cancer treatment

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second type of cancer with the highest lethality rate. The current chemotherapy to treat CRC causes systemic toxicity, unsatisfying response rate, and low tumor-specific selectivity, which is mainly administered by invasive routes. The chronic and aggressive nature of cancers may require long-term regimens. Thus, the oral route is preferred. However, the orally administered drugs still need to surpass the harsh environment of the gastrointestinal tract and the biological barriers. Nanotechnology is a promising strategy to overcome the oral route limitations. Targeted nanoparticle systems decorated with functional groups can enhance the delivery of anticancer agents to tumor sites. It is described in the literature that the neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) is expressed in cancer tissue and overexpressed in CRC epithelial cells. However, the impact of FcRn-targeted nanosystems in the treatment of CRC has been poorly investigated. This review article discusses the current knowledge on the involvement of the FcRn in CRC, as well as to critically assess its relevance as a target for further localization of oral nanocarriers in CRC tumor cells. Finally, a brief overview of cancer therapeutics, strategies to design the nanoparticles of anticancer drugs and a review of decorated nanoparticles with FcRn moieties are explored.

Nano-Chemotherapy synergize with immune checkpoint inhibitor- A better option?

Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) is one of the most important tumor treatment methods. Although the therapeutic efficiency of immune checkpoint inhibitor mono-therapy is limited, the combination of chemotherapy plus immune checkpoint inhibitors has shown great advantages in cancer treatment. This is mainly due to the fact that tumor reactive T cells could fully provide their anti-tumor function as chemotherapy could not only cause immunogenic cell death to increase antigen presentation, but also improve the immunosuppressive tumor micro-environment to synergize with immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, traditional chemotherapy still has shortcomings such as insufficient drug concentration in tumor region, short drug duration, drug resistance, major adverse events, etc, which might lead to the failure of the therapy. Nano chemotherapeutic drugs, which refer to chemotherapeutic drugs loaded in nano-based drug delivery system, could overcome the above shortcomings of traditional chemotherapeutic drugs to further improve the therapeutic effect of immune checkpoint inhibitors on tumors. Therefore, the scheme of nano chemotherapeutic drugs combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors might lead to improved outcome of cancer patients compared with the scheme of traditional chemotherapy combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Therapeutic approaches to colorectal cancer via strategies based on modulation of gut microbiota

Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks third in terms of global incidence and second in terms of death toll among malignant tumors. Gut microbiota are involved in the formation, development, and responses to different treatments of CRC. Under normal physiological conditions, intestinal microorganisms protect the intestinal mucosa, resist pathogen invasion, and regulate the proliferation of intestinal mucosal cells via a barrier effect and inhibition of DNA damage. The composition of gut microbiota and the influences of diet, drugs, and gender on the composition of the intestinal flora are important factors in the early detection of CRC and prediction of the results of CRC treatment. Regulation of gut microbiota is one of the most promising new strategies for CRC treatment, and it is essential to clarify the effect of gut microbiota on CRC and its possible mechanisms to facilitate the prevention and treatment of CRC. This review discusses the role of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of CRC, the potential of gut microbiota as biomarkers for CRC, and therapeutic approaches to CRC based on the regulation of gut microbiota. It might provide new ideas for the use of gut microbiota in the prevention and treatment of CRC in the near future and thus reduce the incidence of CRC.

Micelles as potential drug delivery systems for colorectal cancer treatment

Despite the significant progress in cancer therapy, colorectal cancer (CRC) remains one of the most fatal malignancies worldwide. Chemotherapy is currently the mainstay therapeutic modality adopted for CRC treatment. However, the long-term effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs has been hampered by their low bioavailability, non-selective tumor targeting mechanisms, non-specific biodistribution associated with low drug concentrations at the tumor site and undesirable side effects. Over the last decade, there has been increasing interest in using nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems to circumvent these limitations. Various nanoparticles have been developed for delivering chemotherapeutic drugs among which polymeric micelles are attractive candidates. Polymeric micelles are biocompatible nanocarriers that can bypass the biological barriers and preferentially accumulate in tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention effect. They can be easily engineered with stimuli-responsive and tumor targeting moieties to further ensure their selective uptake by cancer cells and controlled drug release at the desirable tumor site. They have been shown to effectively improve the pharmacokinetic properties of chemotherapeutic drugs and enhance their safety profile and anticancer efficacy in different types of cancer. Given that combination therapy is the new strategy implemented in cancer therapy, polymeric micelles are suitable for multidrug delivery and allow drugs to act concurrently at the action site to achieve synergistic therapeutic outcomes. They also allow the delivery of anticancer genetic material along with chemotherapy drugs offering a novel approach for CRC therapy. Here, we highlight the properties of polymeric micelles that make them promising drug delivery systems for CRC treatment. We also review their application in CRC chemotherapy and gene therapy as well as in combination cancer chemotherapy.

Three-dimensional (3D) liver cell models - a tool for bridging the gap between animal studies and clinical trials when screening liver accumulation and toxicity of nanobiomaterials

Despite the exciting properties and wide-reaching applications of nanobiomaterials (NBMs) in human health and medicine, their translation from bench to bedside is slow, with a predominant issue being liver accumulation and toxicity following systemic administration. In vitro 2D cell-based assays and in vivo testing are the most popular and widely used methods for assessing liver toxicity at pre-clinical stages; however, these fall short in predicting toxicity for NBMs. Focusing on in vitro and in vivo assessment, the accurate prediction of human-specific hepatotoxicity is still a significant challenge to researchers. This review describes the relationship between NBMs and the liver, and the methods for assessing toxicity, focusing on the limitations they bring in the assessment of NBM hepatotoxicity as one of the reasons defining the poor translation for NBMs. We will then present some of the most recent advances towards the development of more biologically relevant in vitro liver methods based on tissue-mimetic 3D cell models and how these could facilitate the translation of NBMs going forward. Finally, we also discuss the low public acceptance and limited uptake of tissue-mimetic 3D models in pre-clinical assessment, despite the demonstrated technical and ethical advantages associated with them.

Lipid-Based Nanoparticles for Targeted Delivery of the Anti-Cancer Drugs: A Review

Abstract:

Cancer is one of the main reasons for mortality worldwide. Chemotherapeutic agents have been effectively designed to increase certain patients' survival rates, but ordinarily designed chemotherapeutic agents necessarily deliver toxic chemotherapeutic drugs to healthy tissues, resulting in serious side effects. Cancer cells can often acquire drug resistance after repeated dosing of current chemotherapeutic agents, restricting their efficacy. Given such obstacles, investigators have attempted to distribute chemotherapeutic agents using targeted drug delivery systems (DDSs), especially nanotechnology-based DDSs. Lipid-Based Nanoparticles (LBNPs) are a large and complex class of substances that have been utilized to manage a variety of diseases, mostly cancer. Liposomes seem to be the most frequently employed LBNPs, owing to their high biocompatibility, bioactivity, stability, and flexibility; howbeit Solid Lipid Nanoparticles (SLNs) and Non-structured Lipid Carriers (NLCs) have lately received a lot of interest. Besides that, there are several reports that concentrate on novel therapies via LBNPs to manage various forms of cancer. In the present research, the latest improvements in the application of LBNPs have been shown to deliver different therapeutic agents to cancerous cells and have been demonstrated LBNPs also can be a quite successful candidate in cancer therapy for subsequent use.

Combined Fluorescence and Optoacoustic Imaging for Monitoring Treatments against CT26 Tumors with Photoactivatable Liposomes

The newly developed multimodal imaging system combining raster-scan optoacoustic (OA) microscopy and fluorescence (FL) wide-field imaging was used for characterizing the tumor vascular structure with 38/50 μm axial/transverse resolution and assessment of photosensitizer fluorescence kinetics during treatment with novel theranostic agents. A multifunctional photoactivatable multi-inhibitor liposomal (PMILs) nano platform was engineered here, containing a clinically approved photosensitizer, Benzoporphyrin derivative (BPD) in the bilayer, and topoisomerase I inhibitor, Irinotecan (IRI) in its inner core, for a synergetic therapeutic impact. The optimized PMIL was anionic, with the hydrodynamic diameter of 131.6 ± 2.1 nm and polydispersity index (PDI) of 0.05 ± 0.01, and the zeta potential between -14.9 ± 1.04 to -16.9 ± 0.92 mV. In the in vivo studies on BALB/c mice with CT26 tumors were performed to evaluate PMILs' therapeutic efficacy. PMILs demonstrated the best inhibitory effect of 97% on tumor growth compared to the treatment with BPD-PC containing liposomes (PALs), 81%, or IRI containing liposomes (L-[IRI]) alone, 50%. This confirms the release of IRI within the tumor cells upon PMILs triggering by NIR light, which is additionally illustrated by FL monitoring demonstrating enhancement of drug accumulation in tumor initiated by PDT in 24 h after the treatment. OA monitoring revealed the largest alterations of the tumor vascular structure in the PMILs treated mice as compared to BPD-PC or IRI treated mice. The results were further corroborated with histological data that also showed a 5-fold higher percentage of hemorrhages in PMIL treated mice compared to the control groups. Overall, these results suggest that multifunctional PMILs simultaneously delivering PDT and chemotherapy agents along with OA and FL multi-modal imaging offers an efficient and personalized image-guided platform to improve cancer treatment outcomes.

Eudragit S100 prepared pH-responsive liposomes-loaded betulinic acid against colorectal cancer in vitro and in vivo

This study aimed to develop polymer Eudragit S100 for preparing pH-responsive liposomes-loaded betulinic acid (pH-BA-LP) to improve the therapeutic index of chemotherapy for colorectal cancer. BA-loaded liposomes were coated with Eudragit S100 by a thin film dispersion and easily scalable pH-driven method. The prepared liposomes were evaluated for size, surface morphology, entrapment efficiency, stability, in vitro drug release, and antitumor activity. In particular, pH-BA-LP showed advantages such as lower size (<100 nm), encapsulation efficiency of 90%, high stability, and stably cumulative release. By detecting the antitumor effects of pH-BA-LP in vivo, it showed that the tumor proliferation and cell migration were significantly inhibited in colorectal cancer. The pH-BA-LP also inhibited tumor growth via the regulation of Akt/TLR-mediated signalling and significantly down-regulated the expression of NFAT1 and NFAT4 proteins. It was found that pH-BA-LP can increase NK cells and CD3⁺ cells in tumor tissues, and the proportion of CD8⁺ cells in CD3⁺ cells was also increased, which proved that pH-BA-LP can play an antitumor effect by enhancing the autoimmunity level in tumor-bearing mice. The positive infiltration rates of CD8 and CD68 were increased and CD163 was relatively decreased by using pH-BA-LP, which proved that pH-BA-LP can regulate the immune infiltration levels in tumor-bearing mice. Therefore, the present work provides an effective method to prepare pH-responsive polymer-coated liposomes for colonic delivery with biologically active compounds.

Nanocarriers as a Tool for the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer

Nanotechnology is a promising tool for the treatment of cancer. In the past decades, major steps have been made to bring nanotechnology into the clinic in the form of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems. The great hope of drug delivery systems is to reduce the side effects of chemotherapeutics while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of the therapy. An increased treatment efficiency would greatly benefit the quality of life as well as the life expectancy of cancer patients. However, besides its many advantages, nanomedicines have to face several challenges and hurdles before they can be used for the effective treatment of tumors. Here, we give an overview of the hallmarks of cancer, especially colorectal cancer, and discuss biological barriers as well as how drug delivery systems can be utilized for the effective treatment of tumors and metastases.

Orally Administrable Therapeutic Nanoparticles for the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common and lethal human malignancies worldwide; however, the therapeutic outcomes in the clinic still are unsatisfactory due to the lack of effective and safe therapeutic regimens. Orally administrable and CRC-targetable drug delivery is an attractive approach for CRC therapy as it improves the efficacy by local drug delivery and reduces systemic toxicity. Currently, chemotherapy remains the mainstay modality for CRC therapy; however, most of chemo drugs have low water solubility and are unstable in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), poor intestinal permeability, and are susceptible to P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux, resulting in limited therapeutic outcomes. Orally administrable nanoformulations hold the great potential for improving the bioavailability of poorly permeable and poorly soluble therapeutics, but there are still limitations associated with these regimes. This review focuses on the barriers for oral drug delivery and various oral therapeutic nanoparticles for the management of CRC.

Synthesis and characterization of magnetic nanocomposite for in vitro evaluation of irinotecan using human cell lines

In this study, magnetic O-carboxymethyl chitosan (MOCC) nanocomposite was synthesized and characterized as a drug delivery system for loading the anticancer drug irinotecan (CPT-11). To increase the drug loading capacity, MOCC was synthesized by linking the carboxyl group functionally to chitosan. Also, several critical factors such as concentration, the dose of MOCC, and contact time for optimum drug loading condition were investigated. The loading capacity of CPT-11 onto MOCC was calculated as 5.6 mg/g, and the loaded drug concentration was calculated as 0.04787 mM at pH value of 5. Besides, the cytotoxic properties of MOCC, CPT- 11 loaded MOCC (MOCC-CPT-11), and free CPT-11 were studied on glioblastoma multiforme cell lines, including U87 and U373. According to the results, the MOCC-CPT-11 showed at least as toxic effect as free CPT-11 even at very low concentrations, while the MOCC showed slight toxicity (cell viability of 96% to 78%) on U373 cell lines at all concentrations and for 24 h and 48 h incubation times. Moreover, the results showed that the MOCC indicated significant toxicity in increasing concentrations and incubation times, and the MOCC-CPT-11 is as toxic as free CPT-11 on U87 cells at all concentrations and incubation times.

Current Landscape in Organic Nanosized Materials Advances for Improved Management of Colorectal Cancer Patients

Globally, colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks as one of the most prevalent types of cancers at the moment, being the second cause of cancer-related deaths. The CRC chemotherapy backbone is represented by 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and their combinations, but their administration presents several serious disadvantages, such as poor bioavailability, lack of tumor specificity, and susceptibility to multidrug resistance. To address these limitations, nanomedicine has arisen as a powerful tool to improve current chemotherapy since nanosized carriers hold great promise in improving the stability and solubility of the drug payload and enhancing the active concentration of the drug that reaches the tumor tissue, increasing, therefore, the safety and efficacy of the treatment. In this context, the present review offers an overview of the most recent advances in the development of nanosized drug-delivery systems as smart therapeutic tools in CRC management and highlights the emerging need for improving the existing in vitro cancer models to reduce animal testing and increase the success of nanomedicine in clinical trials.

Advancements in cancer chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is in most cases a method of systemic treatment of malignant tumors with cytostatic drugs. Although modern methods such as immunotherapy or targeted therapy are used more and more often nowadays, the role of chemotherapy in oncology is still significant. It can be used as an independent treatment method or in combination with other oncological therapies. The action of chemotherapy is closely linked to the cell cycle of the tumor. Advances in technology allow the introduction of different pharmaceutical forms of the same drug. Worse prognosis of metastatic tumors justifies the need to search for new, more effective treatment methods. The main problem of chemotherapy is the occurrence of adverse events. Reducing the frequency and severity of side effects is possible primarily by changing the technique of implementation of chemotherapy administration. These principles are fulfilled by new, increasingly popular therapeutic methods, such as: Perioperative Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC), Pressurized Intraperitoneal Aerosol Chemotherapy (PIPAC) or transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). The dynamic development of knowledge concerning cytostatic drugs, including targeting the tumor cell with the form of the drug, allows us to assume that in the future this direction will increase the effectiveness and safety of anticancer therapy.

Lipid-Based Drug Delivery Nanoplatforms for Colorectal Cancer Therapy

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a prevalent disease worldwide, and patients at late stages of CRC often suffer from a high mortality rate after surgery. Adjuvant chemotherapeutics (ACs) have been extensively developed to improve the survival rate of such patients, but conventionally formulated ACs inevitably distribute toxic chemotherapeutic drugs to healthy organs and thus often trigger severe side effects. CRC cells may also develop drug resistance following repeat dosing of conventional ACs, limiting their effectiveness. Given these limitations, researchers have sought to use targeted drug delivery systems (DDSs), specifically the nanotechnology-based DDSs, to deliver the ACs. As lipid-based nanoplatforms have shown the potential to improve the efficacy and safety of various cytotoxic drugs (such as paclitaxel and vincristine) in the clinical treatment of gastric cancer and leukemia, the preclinical progress of lipid-based nanoplatforms has attracted increasing interest. The lipid-based nanoplatforms might be the most promising DDSs to succeed in entering a clinical trial for CRC treatment. This review will briefly examine the history of preclinical research on lipid-based nanoplatforms, summarize the current progress, and discuss the challenges and prospects of using such approaches in the treatment of CRC.