Liposomes, cancer , pharmaceutics , drug delivery systems

Overexpression of the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is found in 20-30% of breast cancer tumors (HER2-positive breast cancers) and is associated with more aggressive onset of disease, higher recurrence rate and increased mortality. Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) like trastuzumab and pertuzumab in combination with chemotherapeutics, and trastuzumab-based antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) are used in the clinic to treat these cancers. An alternative targeted strategy (not yet in clinical use) is the encapsulation of chemotherapeutic drugs in immunoliposomes...

Breast cancer (BC) has become the fifth most prevalent cause of cancer-related morbidity, attracting significant attention from researchers due to its heightened malignancy and drug resistance. Conventional chemotherapy approaches have proven inadequate in addressing all BC subtypes, highlighting the urgent need for novel therapeutic approaches or drugs. Curcumin (CUR), a phytochemical derived from Curcuma longa (turmeric), has shown substantial potential in inhibiting BC cell migration, metastasis, and proliferation...

The NFL-peptide was discovered almost 20 years ago, and its targeting properties were assessed alone or in combination with lipid nanocapsules (LNC), magnetic porous silicon nanorods, or gold nanoparticles. Results highlighted a better targeting of cancer cells, in particular glioblastoma and pancreas cancer. Considering the large use of liposomes (LPs) as an hydrophilic drug delivery system, this study explored the possibility to functionalize liposomes with three different sequences of NFL-peptides: native (NFL-peptide), biotinylated (BIOT-NFL) and coupled to fluorescein (FAM-NFL)...

Abstract：Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) can induce apoptosis by interacting with death receptors. However the short half-life and the resistance of tumor cells to TRAIL limit its therapeutic effect. Imatinib has been shown to be effective against colon cancer cell lines and enhance TRAIL-induced apoptosis. However the side effects of it were unavoidable during treatment. To solve these problems, we successfully prepared a kind of multifunctional liposome that encapsulated imatinib in its internal water phase and inserted TRAIL on its membrane in this study, which named ITLPs...

BACKGROUND: Transdermal drug delivery systems (TDDS) offer several advantages over traditional methods like injections and oral administration, including preventing first-pass metabolism, providing consistent and sustained activity, reducing side effects, enabling the use of short halflife drugs, improving physiological response, and enhancing patient convenience. However, the permeability of skin poses a challenge for TDDS, as it is impermeable to large molecules and hydrophilic drugs but permeable to small molecules and lipophilic medications...

The limitations of conventional cancer treatment are driving the emergence and development of nanomedicines. Research in liposomal nanomedicine for cancer therapy is rapidly increasing, opening up new horizons for cancer treatment. Liposomal nanomedicine, which focuses on targeted drug delivery to improve the therapeutic effect of cancer while reducing damage to normal tissues and cells, has great potential in the field of cancer therapy. This review aims to clarify the advantages of liposomal delivery systems in cancer therapy...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) continues to be one of the most prevalent and deadliest forms of cancer worldwide, despite notable advancements in its management. The prognosis for metastatic CRC remains discouraging, with a relative 5-year survival rate for stage IV CRC patients. Conventional treatments for advanced malignancies such as chemotherapy, often face limitations in effectively targeting cancer cells resulting in off-target distribution and significant side effects. In the quest for better strategies, researchers have explored numerous alternatives...

Throughout the years, considerable progress has been made in methods for delivering drugs directly to the lungs, which offers enhanced precision in targeting specific lung regions. Currently, for treatment of lung cancer, the prevalent routes for drug administration are oral and parenteral. These methods, while effective, often come with side effects including hair loss, nausea, vomiting, susceptibility to infections, and bleeding. Direct drug delivery to the lungs presents a range of advantages. Notably, it can significantly reduce or even eliminate these side effects and provide more accurate targeting of malignancies...

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy drugs can cause drug resistance and other problems when treating lung cancer, which leads to treatment failure. Ursolic acid (UA) is used in formulations based on traditional Chinese medicine. UA has excellent anti-tumor effects, but they are limited by solubility and non-specificity to tumor cells. OBJECTIVES: To overcome these issues, we created a novel hyaluronic acid (HA)-targeted liposome system for delivering UA (HA-Lipo/UA) to explore the targeting and anti-tumor effects of UA...

Active targeting nano-delivery is a promising approach to enhance therapeutic efficacy and specificity to the target cells. Liposomes (LPs) have been widely studied for the active targeting delivery due to their low toxicity, biodegradability, biocompatibility, and feasibility of surface medication to provide the interactions with cell receptors. One of the strategies is to functionalize the surface of LPs with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to obtain immunoliposomes (imLPs) that recognize specific receptors on target cells...

BACKGROUND: Liposomal Doxorubicin (Doxil®) was one of the first nanoformulations approved for the treatment of solid tumors. Although there is already extensive experience in its use for different tumors, there is currently no grouped evidence of its therapeutic benefits in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A systematic review of the literature was performed on the therapeutic effectiveness and benefits of Liposomal Doxil® in NSCLC. METHODS: A total of 1022 articles were identified in publications up to 2020 (MEDLINE, Cochrane, Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus)...

Current pharmaceutical research is energetically excavating the pharmacotherapeutic role of herb-derived ingredients in multiple malignancies' targeting. Luteolin is one of the major phytochemical components that exist in various traditional Chinese medicine or medical herbs. Mounting evidence reveals that this phytoconstituent endows prominent therapeutic actions on diverse malignancies, with the underlying mechanisms, combined medication strategy, and pharmacokinetics elusive. Additionally, the clinical trial and pharmaceutical investigation of luteolin remain to be systematically delineated...

To reduce recurrence rate after transurethral resection of bladder tumor, long-term intravesical instillations of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) and/or chemotherapeutic drugs is the standard treatment for non-muscle invasive bladder carcinoma. However, the main challenges of intravesical therapy, such as short retention time and poor permeability of drugs in the bladder, often require frequent and high-dose administrations, leading to significant adverse effects and financial burden for patients. Aiming at addressing these challenges, we developed a novel approach, in which the cell-penetrating peptide modified oxaliplatin prodrug liposomes and a low-dose BCG were co-delivered via a viscous chitosan solution (LRO-BCG/CS)...

The incidence rate of melanoma is dramatically increasing worldwide, raising it to the fifth most common cancer in men and the sixth in women currently. Resistance generally occurs to the agents used in chemotherapy; besides their high toxicity destroys the normal cells. This study reviewed a detailed summary of the structure, advantages, and disadvantages of nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems in the treatment of melanoma, as well as some nanocarrier applications in animal models or clinical studies...

Aim: Gefitinib-loaded D-α-tocopherol polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS)-coated cationic liposomes (GEF-TPGS-LIPO+ ) were developed and optimized by the quality by design (QbD) approach for its potential anticancer effect. Methods/materials: Box-Behnken design (BBD) a systematic design of experiments was added to screen and optimize the formulation variables. Results: GEF-TPGS-LIPO+ shows vesicle size (210 ± 4.82 nm), polydispersity index (0.271 ± 0.002), zeta potential (22...

One of the most prevalent cancers affecting women globally is cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is thought to cause 570.000 new cases annually, and standard treatments can have serious side effects. In this work main aim is to design, fabrication and evaluation of carboplatin loaded chitosan coated liposomal formulation (CCLF-I) for vaginal delivery in treatment of cervical cancer. The particle size and polydispersity index of the CCLF-1 was observed 269.33 ± 1.15 nm and 0.40 ± 0...

Insufficient drug accumulation in tumors is still a major concern for using cancer nanotherapeutics. Here, the neutrophil-based delivery of three nanoparticle types-liposomes, PLGA, and magnetite nanoparticles-was assessed both in vitro and in vivo. Confocal microscopy and a flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that all the studied nanoparticles interacted with neutrophils from the peripheral blood of mice with 4T1 mammary adenocarcinoma without a significant impact on neutrophil viability or activation state...

The prognosis of pancreatic cancer (PCa) is extremely poor because of its resistance to conventional therapies. Many previous studies have demonstrated that triptolide (TPL) has a potent tumoricidal activity on PCa. However, the clinical application of TPL in tumor therapy has been greatly limited by its poor aqueous solubility, short half-time, high toxicity and inefficient delivery. Here, through the engineering of prodrug technology combined with the nanodrug-delivery system (NDDS) strategy, we modified the main active site of TPL C14-OH by esterification reaction to obtain a highly lipophilic prodrug, and then encapsulated the drug in a phospholipid bilayer in liposomal vehicles through the thin-film hydration method for efficient delivery...

Gemcitabine (GEM) is a non-selective chemotherapeutic agent used in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Its antitumor efficacy is limited by a short plasma half-life and severe adverse reactions. To overcome these shortcomings, four novel lipid-like GEM diesters were synthesized and encapsulated into liposomes. Through optimization, dimyristoyl GEM (dmGEM)-loaded liposomes (LipodmGEM) were successfully obtained with an almost complete encapsulation efficiency. Compared to free GEM, LipodmGEM showed enhanced cellular uptake and cell apoptosis, improved inhibition of cell migration on AsPC-1 cells and a greatly extended half-life (7...

Therapeutically active lipids in drug delivery systems offer customization for enhanced pharmaceutical and biological effects, improving safety and efficacy. Biologically active N, N-didodecyl-3,4-dimethoxy-N-methylbenzenaminium lipid (Q) was synthesized and employed to create a liposome formulation (FQ) encapsulating melphalan (M) through a thin film hydration method. Synthesized cationic lipids and their liposomal formulation underwent characterization and assessment for additive anti-cancer effects on myeloma and melanoma cancer cell lines...