Surface receptor-mediated targeted drug delivery systems for enhanced cancer treatment: A state-of-the-art review.

Enhanced cancer treatment remains as one of the focused areas for researchers around the world. Hence, the progress in this direction will be a challenge and an opportunity in, inter-disciplinary field to mitigate the suffering of millions in the upcoming decades. As we see, cancer death rate has also progressively increased despite the current impressive treatment regimens but also due to the non-availability of vaccines and the re-occurring of cancer in substantially recovered patients. Currently, numerous treatment strategies like surgical removal of solid tumors followed by radiation with a combination of immunotherapy/chemotherapy by the researchers and clinicians are routinely being followed. However, recurrence and distant metastasis often occur following radiation therapy, commonly due to the generation of radio-resistance through deregulation of the cell cycle, cell death, and inhibition of DNA damage repair mechanisms. Thus, chemotherapeutic/immunotherapeutic treatment systems have progressed remarkably in the latest years owing to destroying tumors, noninvasive, and affordable charge of therapy. But, traditional chemotherapeutic approaches target the DNA of mutated and normal healthy cells, resulting in a significantly increased risk of toxicity and drug resistance. Thus, many receptors targeted therapies are in the developmental phase of discovery. Cancer cells have a specialized set of surface receptors that provide potential targets for cancer therapeutics. Cell surface receptor-dependent endocytosis is well a known major mechanism for the internalization of macromolecular drugs. This review emphasizes the recent development of several surface receptors mediated cancer-targeting approaches for the effective delivery of various therapeutic formulations.

Utilization of plant-derived Myricetin molecule coupled with ultrasound for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles against breast cancer.

Phytochemical mediated synthesis of nanoparticles has gained great interest in the field of cancer therapeutics. We attempted a simple and stable synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with Myricetin (Myr) adopting ultrasound-assisted method. Further, we evaluated anticancer activity of the synthesized nanoparticles. The physico-chemical properties of biosynthesized Myr-AuNPs were characterized by UV-visible spectrophotometer, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and particle size analysis. The study reports of Myr-AuNPs showed spherical-shaped particles with a size of < 50 nm. Stability of the particles was increased in various physiological media. Furthermore, the graph theoretical network analysis of Myr-AuNPs indicated that the probable binding with the mTOR is an effective target for breast cancer cells. In silico molecular docking study of Myr-AuNPs in human mTOR kinase was found to be strong binding. The IC50 value of Myr-AuNPs was calculated as 13 µg mL-1 against MCF-7 cell line. The AO/EB and DAPI stainings confirmed the anticancer activity by Myr-AuNPs-treated cells showed a good proportion of dead cells evidenced with formation of pro-apoptotic bodies. In addition, Myr-AuNPs exhibited depolarization of mitochondrial membrane potential and production of reactive oxygen species. This study proves that Myr-AuNPs holds great promise to use against breast cancer as a potent anticancer drug. Graphical abstract A schematic representation for the biosynthesis of Myr-AuNPs.