TY - JOUR
T1 - RNA Aptamer-functionalized Polymeric Nanoparticles in Targeted Delivery and Cancer Therapy
T2 - An up-to-date Review
AU - Marangoni, Karina
AU - Menezes, Regina
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by FCT grants UIDB/04567/2020 and UIDP/04567/2020 to CBIOS and PTDC/BIA-MOL/31104/ 2017. R.M. is funded by the FCT Scientific Employment Stimulus contract with the reference number CEEC/04567/CBIOS/2020.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Bentham Science Publishers.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - Cancer nanotechnology takes advantage of nanoparticles to diagnose and treat cancer. The use of natural and synthetic polymers for drug delivery has become increasingly popular. Polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) can be loaded with chemotherapeutics, small chemicals, and/or biological therapeutics. Major problems in delivering such therapeutics to the desired targets are associated with the lack of specificity and the low ca-pacity of PNPs to cross cell membranes, which seems to be even more difficult to overcome in multidrug-resistant cancer cells with rigid lipid bilayers. Despite the progress of these nanocarrier delivery systems (NDSs), active targeting approaches to complement the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect are necessary to improve their therapeutic efficiency and reduce systemic toxicity. For this, a targeting moiety is required to deliver the nanocarrier systems to a specific location. A strategy to overcome these limitations and raise the uptake of PNPs is the conjugation with RNA aptamers (RNApt) with specificity for cancer cells. The site-directed delivery of drugs is made by the functionalization of these specific ligands on the NDSs surface, thereby creating specificity for features of cancer cell membranes or an overexpressed target/receptor exposed to those cells. Despite the advances in the field, NDSs development and functionalization are still in their early stages and numerous challenges are expected to impact the technology. Thus, RNApt supplies a promising re-ply to the common problem related to drug delivery by NDSs. This review summarizes the current knowledge on the use of RNApt to generate functionalized PNPs for cancer therapy, discussing the most relevant studies in the area.
AB - Cancer nanotechnology takes advantage of nanoparticles to diagnose and treat cancer. The use of natural and synthetic polymers for drug delivery has become increasingly popular. Polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) can be loaded with chemotherapeutics, small chemicals, and/or biological therapeutics. Major problems in delivering such therapeutics to the desired targets are associated with the lack of specificity and the low ca-pacity of PNPs to cross cell membranes, which seems to be even more difficult to overcome in multidrug-resistant cancer cells with rigid lipid bilayers. Despite the progress of these nanocarrier delivery systems (NDSs), active targeting approaches to complement the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect are necessary to improve their therapeutic efficiency and reduce systemic toxicity. For this, a targeting moiety is required to deliver the nanocarrier systems to a specific location. A strategy to overcome these limitations and raise the uptake of PNPs is the conjugation with RNA aptamers (RNApt) with specificity for cancer cells. The site-directed delivery of drugs is made by the functionalization of these specific ligands on the NDSs surface, thereby creating specificity for features of cancer cell membranes or an overexpressed target/receptor exposed to those cells. Despite the advances in the field, NDSs development and functionalization are still in their early stages and numerous challenges are expected to impact the technology. Thus, RNApt supplies a promising re-ply to the common problem related to drug delivery by NDSs. This review summarizes the current knowledge on the use of RNApt to generate functionalized PNPs for cancer therapy, discussing the most relevant studies in the area.
KW - cancer therapy
KW - drug delivery
KW - nanosystem
KW - Polymeric nanoparticles
KW - RNA aptamers
KW - SELEX
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141351970&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2174/1381612828666220903120755
DO - 10.2174/1381612828666220903120755
M3 - Short survey
C2 - 36056830
AN - SCOPUS:85141351970
SN - 1381-6128
VL - 28
SP - 2785
EP - 2794
JO - Current Pharmaceutical Design
JF - Current Pharmaceutical Design
IS - 34
ER -