Co-precipitation Synthesis of Near-infrared Iron Oxide Nanocrystals on Magnetically Targeted Imaging and Photothermal Cancer Therapy via Photoablative Protein Denature

Nanoparticles for imaging-guided photothermal therapy of colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies with a high mortality rate worldwide. While surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy have shown some effectiveness in improving survival rates, they come with drawbacks such as side effects and harm to healthy tissues. The theranostic approach, which integrates the processes of cancer diagnosis and treatment, can minimize biological side effects. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is an emerging treatment method that usages light-sensitive agents to generate heat at the tumor site and induce thermal erosion. The development of nanotechnology for CRC treatment using imaging-guided PTT has garnered significant. Nanoparticles with suitable physical and chemical properties can enhance the efficiency of cancer diagnosis and PTT. This approach enables the monitoring of cancer treatment progress and safeguards healthy tissues. In this article, we concisely introduce the application of metal nanoparticles, polymeric nanoparticles, and carbon nanoparticles in imaging-guided PTT of colorectal cancer.

Recent advances of nanocrystals in cancer theranostics

Emerging cancer cases across the globe and treating them with conventional therapies with multiple limitations have been challenging for decades. Novel drug delivery systems and alternative theranostics are required for efficient detection and treatment. Nanocrystals (NCs) have been established as a significant cancer diagnosis and therapeutic tool due to their ability to deliver poorly water-soluble drugs with sustained release, low toxicity, and flexibility in the route of administration, long-term sustainable drug release, and noncomplicated excretion. This review summarizes several therapies of NCs, including anticancer, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, biotheranostics, targeted therapy, photothermal, and photodynamic. Further, different imaging and diagnostics using NCs are mentioned, including imaging, diagnosis through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), biosensing, and luminescence. In addition, the limitations and potential solutions of NCs in the field of cancer theranostics are discussed. Preclinical and clinical data depicting the importance of NCs in the spotlight of cancer, its current status, future aspects, and challenges are covered in detail.

Biomedical applications of metallic nanoparticles in cancer: Current status and future perspectives

The current advancements in nanotechnology are as an outcome of the development of engineered nanoparticles. Various metallic nanoparticles have been extensively explored for various biomedical applications. They attract lot of attention in biomedical field due to their significant inert nature, and nanoscale structures, with size similar to many biological molecules. Their intrinsic characteristics which include electronic, optical, physicochemical and, surface plasmon resonance, that can be changed by altering certain particle characteristics such as size, shape, environment, aspect ratio, ease of synthesis and functionalization properties have led to numerous applications in various fields of biomedicine. These include targeted drug delivery, sensing, photothermal and photodynamic therapy, imaging, as well as the modulation of two or three applications. The current article also discusses about the various properties of metallic nanoparticles and their applications in cancer imaging and therapeutics. The associated bottlenecks related to their clinical translation are also discussed.

Molecular Pathogenesis of Colorectal Cancer with an Emphasis on Recent Advances in Biomarkers, as Well as Nanotechnology-Based Diagnostic and Therapeutic Approaches

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a serious disease that affects millions of people throughout the world, despite considerable advances in therapy. The formation of colorectal adenomas and invasive adenocarcinomas is the consequence of a succession of genetic and epigenetic changes in the normal colonic epithelium. Genetic and epigenetic processes associated with the onset, development, and metastasis of sporadic CRC have been studied in depth, resulting in identifying biomarkers that might be used to predict behaviour and prognosis beyond staging and influence therapeutic options. A novel biomarker, or a group of biomarkers, must be discovered in order to build an accurate and clinically useful test that may be used as an alternative to conventional methods for the early detection of CRC and to identify prospective new therapeutic intervention targets. To minimise the mortality burden of colorectal cancer, new screening methods with higher accuracy and nano-based diagnostic precision are needed. Cytotoxic medication has negative side effects and is restricted by medication resistance. One of the most promising cancer treatment techniques is the use of nano-based carrier system as a medication delivery mechanism. To deliver cytotoxic medicines, targeted nanoparticles might take advantage of differently expressed molecules on the surface of cancer cells. The use of different compounds as ligands on the surface of nanoparticles to interact with cancer cells, enabling the efficient delivery of antitumor medicines. Formulations based on nanoparticles might aid in early cancer diagnosis and help to overcome the limitations of traditional treatments, including low water solubility, nonspecific biodistribution, and restricted bioavailability. This article addresses about the molecular pathogenesis of CRC and highlights about biomarkers. It also provides conceptual knowledge of nanotechnology-based diagnostic techniques and therapeutic approaches for malignant colorectal cancer.

Current update on nanoplatforms as therapeutic and diagnostic tools: A review for the materials used as nanotheranostics and imaging modalities

In the last decade, the use of nanotheranostics as emerging diagnostic and therapeutic tools for various diseases, especially cancer, is held great attention. Up to date, several approaches have been employed in order to develop smart nanotheranostics, which combine bioactive targeting on specific tissues as well as diagnostic properties. The nanotheranostics can deliver therapeutic agents by concomitantly monitor the therapy response in real-time. Consequently, the possibility of over- or under-dosing is decreased. Various non-invasive imaging techniques have been used to quantitatively monitor the drug delivery processes. Radiolabeling of nanomaterials is widely used as powerful diagnostic approach on nuclear medicine imaging. In fact, various radiolabeled nanomaterials have been designed and developed for imaging tumors and other lesions due to their efficient characteristics. Inorganic nanoparticles as gold, silver, silica based nanomaterials or organic nanoparticles as polymers, carbon based nanomaterials, liposomes have been reported as multifunctional nanotheranostics. In this review, the imaging modalities according to their use in various diseases are summarized, providing special details for radiolabeling. In further, the most current nanotheranostics categorized via the used nanomaterials are also summed up. To conclude, this review can be beneficial for medical and pharmaceutical society as well as material scientists who work in the field of nanotheranostics since they can use this research as guide for producing newer and more efficient nanotheranostics.

DNA Nanostructures and DNA-Functionalized Nanoparticles for Cancer Theranostics

In the last two decades, DNA has attracted significant attention toward the development of materials at the nanoscale for emerging applications due to the unparalleled versatility and programmability of DNA building blocks. DNA-based artificial nanomaterials can be broadly classified into two categories: DNA nanostructures (DNA-NSs) and DNA-functionalized nanoparticles (DNA-NPs). More importantly, their use in nanotheranostics, a field that combines diagnostics with therapy via drug or gene delivery in an all-in-one platform, has been applied extensively in recent years to provide personalized cancer treatments. Conveniently, the ease of attachment of both imaging and therapeutic moieties to DNA-NSs or DNA-NPs enables high biostability, biocompatibility, and drug loading capabilities, and as a consequence, has markedly catalyzed the rapid growth of this field. This review aims to provide an overview of the recent progress of DNA-NSs and DNA-NPs as theranostic agents, the use of DNA-NSs and DNA-NPs as gene and drug delivery platforms, and a perspective on their clinical translation in the realm of oncology.

Nanotheranostics for Cancer Therapy and Detection: State of the Art

Nanotheranostics, an approach of combining both diagnosis and therapy, is one of the latest advances in cancer therapy particularly. Nanocarriers designed and derived from inorganic materials such as like gold nanoparticles, silica nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes have been explored for tremendous applications in this area. Similarly, nanoparticles composed of some organic material alone or in combination with inorganic nano-cargos have been developed pre-clinically and possess excellent features desired. Photothermal therapy, MRI, simultaneous imaging and delivery, and combination chemotherapy with a diagnosis are a few of the known methods exploring cancer therapy and detection at organ/tissue/molecular/sub-cellular level. This review comprises an overview of the recent reports meant for nano theranostics purposes. Targeted cancer nanotheranostics have been included for understating tumor micro-environment or cell-specific targeting approach employed. A brief account of various strategies is also included for the readers highlighting the mechanism of cancer therapy.

Magnetic Manganese Oxide Sweetgum-Ball Nanospheres with Large Mesopores Regulate Tumor Microenvironments for Enhanced Tumor Nanotheranostics

An important objective of cancer nanomedicine is to improve the delivery efficacy of functional agents to solid tumors for effective cancer imaging and therapy. Stimulus-responsive nanoplatforms can target and regulate the tumor microenvironment (TME) for the optimization of cancer theranostics. Here, we developed magnetic manganese oxide sweetgum-ball nanospheres (MMOSs) with large mesopores as tools for improved cancer theranostics. MMOSs contain magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and mesoporous manganese oxide (MnO2) nanosheets, which are assembled into gumball-like structures on magnetic iron oxides. The large mesopores of MMOSs are suited for cargo loading with chlorin e6 (Ce6) and doxorubicin (DOX), thus producing so-called CD@MMOSs. The core of magnetic iron oxides could achieve magnetic targeting of tumors under a magnetic field (0.25 mT), and the targeted CD@MMOSs may decompose under TME conditions, thereby releasing loaded cargo molecules and reacting with endogenous hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to generate oxygen (O2) and manganese (II) ions (Mn2+). Investigation in vivo in tumor-bearing mice models showed that the CD@MMOS nanoplatforms achieved TME-responsive cargo release, which might be applied in chemotherapy and photodynamic therapy. A remarkable in vivo synergy of diagnostic and therapeutic functionalities was achieved by the decomposition of CD@MMOSs and coadministration with chemo-photodynamic therapy of tumors using the magnetic targeting mechanism. Thus, the result of this study demonstrates the feasibility of smart nanotheranostics to achieve tumor-specific enhanced combination therapy.