Advent in proteins, nucleic acids, and biological cell membranes functionalized nanocarriers to accomplish active or homologous tumor targeting for smart amalgamated chemotherapy/photo-therapy: A review.

Conventional cancer mono-therapeutic approaches including radiotherapy, surgery, and chemotherapy don't always achieve satisfactory outcomes and are frequently associated with significant limitations. Although chemotherapy is a vital intervention, its effectiveness is frequently inadequate and is associated with metastasis, multidrug resistance, off-target effect, and normal cells toxicity. Phototherapies are employed in cancer therapy, encompassing photo-dynamic and photo-thermal therapies which under favorable NIR laser light irradiation initiate the included photosensitizers and photo-thermal agents to generate ROS or thermal heat respectively for cancer cells destruction. Photo-therapy is considered noninvasive, posing no resistance, but it still suffers from several pitfalls like low penetration depth and excessive heat generation affecting neighboring tissues. Improved selectivity and tumor-homing capacity could be attained through surface modulation of nanoparticles with targeting ligands that bind to receptors, which are exclusively overexpressed on cancerous cells. Developing novel modified targeted nanoparticulate platforms integrating different therapeutic modalities like photo-therapy and chemotherapy is a topic of active research. This review aimed to highlight recent advances in proteins, nucleic acids, and biological cell membranes functionalized nanocarriers for smart combinatorial chemotherapy/photo-therapy. Nanocarriers decorated with precise targeting ligands, like aptamers, antibody, and lactoferrin, to achieve active tumor-targeting or camouflaging using various biological cell membrane coating are designed to achieve homologous tumor-targeting.

Carbohydrate ligands-directed active tumor targeting of combinatorial chemotherapy/phototherapy-based nanomedicine: A review.

Phototherapies or light mediated therapies, including mutually photothermal and photodynamic therapy that encompass irradiation of the target organs with light, have been widely employed as minimally invasive approach associated with negligible drug resistance for eradicating multiple tumors with minimal hazards to normal organs. Despite all these advantages, many obstacles in phototherapy hinder progress toward clinical application. Therefore, researchers have developed nano-particulate delivery systems integrated with phototherapy and therapeutic cytotoxic drugs to overcome these obstacles and achieve maximum efficacy in cancer treatment. Active targeting ligands were integrated into their surfaces to improve the selectivity and tumor targeting ability, enabling easy binding and recognition by cellular receptors overexpressed on the tumor tissue compared to normal ones. This enhances intratumoral accumulation with minimal toxicity on the adjacent normal cells. Various active targeting ligands, including antibodies, aptamers, peptides, lactoferrin, folic acid and carbohydrates, have been explored for the targeted delivery of chemotherapy/phototherapy-based nanomedicine. Among these ligands, carbohydrates have been applied due to their unique features that ameliorate the bioadhesive, noncovalent conjugation to biological tissues. In this review, the up-to-date techniques of employing carbohydrates active targeting ligands will be highlighted concerning the surface modification of the nanoparticles for ameliorating the targeting ability of the chemo/phototherapy.

The synergistic effect of using bacteriophages and chitosan nanoparticles against pathogenic bacteria as a novel therapeutic approach.

Public health and environmental security are seriously at risk due to the growing contamination of pathogenic microorganisms. Therefore, effective antimicrobials are urgently needed. In our study, the antimicrobial effects of three types of nanoparticles were investigated with phage. The biosynthesis of nanoparticles was confirmed based on the color change and shapes, which tended to be mono-dispersed with a spherical shape with a size range of 20-35 nm for Ag-CS-NPs; 15-30 nm for Phage-CS-NPs (Ph-CS-NPs); and 5-35 nm for Propolis-CS-NPs (Pro-CS-NPs). Nanoparticles displayed peaks between 380-420 nm, 335-380 nm, and below 335 nm for Ag-CS-NPs, Pro-CS-NPs, and Ph-CS NPs, respectively. Throughout the three synthesized nanoparticles, AgCs NPs represented a higher antibacterial effect in combination with phages. It showed MIC against S. sciuri, S. Typhimurium, and P. aeruginosa between 31.2 and 62.2 µg/mL and MBC at 500, 62.5, and 31.2 µg/mL, respectively, while in combination with phages showed MIC at 62.2, 31.2, and 15.6 µg/mL, respectively and MBC at 125, 62.2, and 15.6 µg/mL, respectively. Furthermore, a significant killing efficiency was observed with 16.5-30.1 µg/mL of Ag-CS NPs combined with phages. In conclusion, Ag-CS-NPs with phages present potential bactericidal and inhibitory effects against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, as well as against the production of biofilms.