Nanotechnology and Matrix Metalloproteinases in Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment.

Cancer is still one of the leading causes of death worldwide. This great mortality is due to its late diagnosis when the disease is already at advanced stages. Although the efforts made to develop more effective treatments, around 90% of cancer deaths are due to metastasis that confers a systemic character to the disease. Likewise, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are endopeptidases that participate in all the events of the metastatic process. MMPs' augmented concentrations and an increased enzymatic activity have been considered bad prognosis markers of the disease. Therefore, synthetic inhibitors have been created to block MMPs' enzymatic activity. However, they have been ineffective in addition to causing considerable side effects. On the other hand, nanotechnology offers the opportunity to formulate therapeutic agents that can act directly on a target cell, avoiding side effects and improving the diagnosis, follow-up, and treatment of cancer. The goal of the present review is to discuss novel nanotechnological strategies in which MMPs are used with theranostic purposes and as therapeutic targets to control cancer progression.