Current Understanding of Interactions between Nanoparticles and ABC Transporters in Cancer Cells.

Adenosine triphosphate-binding cassette (ABC) transporters-mediated multidrug resistance (MDR) remains as a obstacle for effective cancer therapy. Nanoparticles (NPs)-based delivery systems are promising to overcome MDR, but only a few of them have been accepted for clinical treatment, due to characteristics such as insufficient transportation and potential toxicity. In this respect, mounting attention has been attracted towards interactions between NPs and ABC transporters, which hold a key role in the treatment of multidrug-resistant cancer and NP toxicity. In this review article, current knowledge on the involvement of ABC transporters in MDR and their inhibitors is provided. More importantly, recent literatures about the interactions between NPs and ABC transporters are summarized here. Organic and inorganic NPs inhibit the function of ABC transporters based on distinct mechanisms. The effects of organic NPs are caused by several excipients like surfactants, polymers, lipids and cyclodextrin, whereas inorganic NPs act as substrates of ABC transporters and competitively inhibit the efflux of drugs. Based on these interesting phenomena, a more thorough understanding of the specific mechanisms is necessary and essential in the hope to develop more efficient NPs to overcome MDR and decrease environmental toxicity of NPs.