Exploiting Lipid and Polymer Nanocarriers to Improve the Anticancer Sonodynamic Activity of Chlorophyll

Natural compounds-based nanomedicines for cancer treatment: Future directions and challenges

Several efforts have been extensively accomplished for the amelioration of the cancer treatments using different types of new drugs and less invasives therapies in comparison with the traditional therapeutic modalities, which are widely associated with numerous drawbacks, such as drug resistance, non-selectivity and high costs, restraining their clinical response. The application of natural compounds for the prevention and treatment of different cancer cells has attracted significant attention from the pharmaceuticals and scientific communities over the past decades. Although the use of nanotechnology in cancer therapy is still in the preliminary stages, the application of nanotherapeutics has demonstrated to decrease the various limitations related to the use of natural compounds, such as physical/chemical instability, poor aqueous solubility, and low bioavailability. Despite the nanotechnology has emerged as a promise to improve the bioavailability of the natural compounds, there are still limited clinical trials performed for their application with various challenges required for the pre-clinical and clinical trials, such as production at an industrial level, assurance of nanotherapeutics long-term stability, physiological barriers and safety and regulatory issues. This review highlights the most recent advances in the nanocarriers for natural compounds secreted from plants, bacteria, fungi, and marine organisms, as well as their role on cell signaling pathways for anticancer treatments. Additionally, the clinical status and the main challenges regarding the natural compounds loaded in nanocarriers for clinical applications were also discussed.

Metal-organic frameworks as candidates for tumor sonodynamic therapy: Designable structures for targeted multifunctional transformation

Sonodynamic therapy (SDT), utilizing ultrasound (US) as the trigger, has gained popularity recently as a therapeutic approach with significant potential for treating various diseases. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), characterized by structural flexibility, are prominently emerging in the SDT realm as an innovative type of sonosensitizer, offering functional tunability and biocompatibility. However, due to the inherent limitations of MOFs, such as low reactivity to reactive oxygen species and challenges posed by the complex tumor microenvironment, MOF-based sonosensitizers with singular functions are unable to demonstrate the desired therapeutic efficacy and may pose risks of toxicity, limiting their biological applications to superficial tissues. MOFs generally possess distinctive crystalline structures and properties, and their controlled coordination environments provide a flexible platform for exploring structure-effect relationships and guiding the design and development of MOF-based nanomaterials to unlock their broader potential in biological fields. The primary focus of this paper is to summarize cases involving the modification of different MOF materials and the innovative strategies developed for various complex conditions. The paper outlines the diverse application areas of functionalized MOF-based sonosensitizers in tumor synergistic therapies, highlighting the extensive prospects of SDT. Additionally, challenges confronting SDT are briefly summarized to stimulate increased scientific interest in the practical application of MOFs and the successful clinical translation of SDT. Through these discussions, we strive to foster advancements that lead to early-stage clinical benefits for patients. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: 1. An overview for the progresses in SDT explored from a novel and fundamental perspective. 2. Different modification strategies to improve the MOFs-mediated SDT efficacy are provided. 3. Guidelines for the design of multifunctional MOFs-based sonosensitizers are offered. 4. Powerful tumor ablation potential is reflected in SDT-led synergistic therapies. 5. Future challenges in the field of MOFs-based SDT in clinical translation are suggested.

Tumor-targeted AIE polymeric micelles mediated immunogenic sonodynamic therapy inhibits cancer growth and metastasis

Aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) exhibit potent sonosensitivity in nanocarriers compared with conventional organic sonosensitizers owing to the strong fluorescence emission in the aggregated state. However, the premature drug leakage and ineffective tumor targeting of current AIE nanosonosensitizers critically restrict their clinical applications. Here, an AIEgen-based sonosensitizer (AIE/Biotin-M) with excellent sonosensitivity was developed by assembling salicylaldazine-based amphiphilic polymers (AIE-1) and 4T1 tumor-targeting amphiphilic polymers (DSPE-PEG-Biotin) for the effective delivery of salicylaldazine to 4T1 tumor tissues, aiming to mediate immunogenic SDT. In vitro, AIE/Biotin-M were highly stable and generated plentiful singlet oxygen (¹O₂) under ultrasound (US) irradiation. After AIE/Biotin-M targeted accumulation in the tumor, upon US irradiation, the generation of ¹O₂ not only led to cancer cell death, but also elicited a systemically immune response by causing the immunogenic cell death (ICD) of cancer cells. In addition to mediating SDT, AIE/Biotin-M could chelate and reduce Fe³⁺, Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺ by salicylaldazine for inhibiting neovascularization in tumor tissues. Ultimately, AIE/Biotin-M systemically inhibited tumor growth and metastasis upon US irradiation. This study presents a facile approach to the development of AIE nanosonosensitizers for cancer SDT.

Tumor Spheroids as Model to Design Acoustically Mediated Drug Therapies: A Review

Tumor spheroids as well as multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTSs) are promising 3D in vitro tumor models for drug screening, drug design, drug targeting, drug toxicity, and validation of drug delivery methods. These models partly reflect the tridimensional architecture of tumors, their heterogeneity and their microenvironment, which can alter the intratumoral biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of drugs. The present review first focuses on current spheroid formation methods and then on in vitro investigations exploiting spheroids and MCTS for designing and validating acoustically mediated drug therapies. We discuss the limitations of the current studies and future perspectives. Various spheroid formation methods enable the easy and reproducible generation of spheroids and MCTSs. The development and assessment of acoustically mediated drug therapies have been mainly demonstrated in spheroids made up of tumor cells only. Despite the promising results obtained with these spheroids, the successful evaluation of these therapies will need to be addressed in more relevant 3D vascular MCTS models using MCTS-on-chip platforms. These MTCSs will be generated from patient-derived cancer cells and nontumor cells, such as fibroblasts, adipocytes, and immune cells.

Sonodynamic therapy: Ultrasound parameters and in vitro experimental configurations

Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) is a new therapeutic modality for noninvasive cancer treatment based on the association of ultrasound and sonosensitizer drugs. Up to date, there is not a consensus on the standardization of the experimental conditions for the in vitro studies to correctly assess cell viability during SDT. Therefore, this review article mainly describes how the main ultrasound parameters and experimental setups of ultrasound application in vitro studies can influence the SDT bioeffects/response. The sonodynamic action is impacted by the combination of frequency, intensity, duty cycle, and ultrasound application time. The variation of experimental setups in cell culture, such as the transducer position, cell-transducer distance, coupling medium thickness, or type of culture, also influences the sonodynamic response. The intensity, duty cycle, and sonication duration increase cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species production. For similar ultrasound parameters, differences in the experimental configuration impact cell death in vitro. Four main experimental setups are used to assess for SDT in cell culture (i) a planar transducer placed directly in contact with the bottom of the culture microplate; (ii) microplate positioned in the transducer's far-field using a water tank; (iii) sealed cell culture tubes immersed in water away from the transducer; and (iv) transducer dipped directly into the well with cell culture. Because of the significant variations in the experimental setups, sonodynamic response can significantly vary, and the translation of these results for in vivo experimentation is difficult. Therefore, a well-designed and detailed in vitro experimental setup is vital for understanding the interactions among the biological medium, the sonosensitizer, and the ultrasound for the in vitro to in vivo translation in SDT.

Biomedical Applications of Reactive Oxygen Species Generation by Metal Nanoparticles

The design, synthesis and characterization of new nanomaterials represents one of the most dynamic and transversal aspects of nanotechnology applications in the biomedical field. New synthetic and engineering improvements allow the design of a wide range of biocompatible nanostructured materials (NSMs) and nanoparticles (NPs) which, with or without additional chemical and/or biomolecular surface modifications, are more frequently employed in applications for successful diagnostic, drug delivery and therapeutic procedures. Metal-based nanoparticles (MNPs) including metal NPs, metal oxide NPs, quantum dots (QDs) and magnetic NPs, thanks to their physical and chemical properties have gained much traction for their functional use in biomedicine. In this review it is highlighted how the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in many respects could be considered a negative aspect of the interaction of MNPs with biological matter, may be a surprising nanotechnology weapon. From the exchange of knowledge between branches such as materials science, nanotechnology, engineering, biochemistry and medicine, researchers and clinicians are setting and standardizing treatments by tuning ROS production to induce cancer or microbial cell death.

Emergent Strategies for Natural Products Delivery

Natural products have a wide range of applications with a profound impact in the medical and healthcare fields [...]