Recent progress in the development of nanomaterials targeting multiple cancer metabolic pathways: a review of mechanistic approaches for cancer treatment

Abstract

Cancer is a very heterogeneous disease, and uncontrolled cell division is the main characteristic of cancer. Cancerous cells need a high nutrition intake to enable aberrant growth and survival. To do so, cancer cells modify metabolic pathways to produce energy and anabolic precursors and preserve redox balance. Due to the importance of metabolic pathways in tumor growth and malignant transformation, metabolic pathways have also been given promising perspectives for cancer treatment, providing more effective treatment strategies, and target-specific with minimum side effects. Metabolism-based therapeutic nanomaterials for targeted cancer treatment are a promising option. Numerous types of nanoparticles (NPs) are employed in the research and analysis of various cancer therapies. The current review focuses on cutting-edge strategies and current cancer therapy methods based on nanomaterials that target various cancer metabolisms. Additionally, it highlighted the primacy of NPs-based cancer therapies over traditional ones, the challenges, and the future potential.

Keywords:

• Cancer metabolisms
• nanoparticles
• anticancer drugs
• nanomedicine
• drug delivery

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Disclosure statement

All the authors declare that they have no financial or any other competing interests.

Authors’ contribution

Ling Zhang and Yin Wang prepared the draft and wrote the manuscript. Bing-Zhong Zhai helped in preparing the figures. Yue-Jin Wu refined and arranged the contents of the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Key Subjects of Nutrition of Zhejiang Province (16-zc03, Yin Wang), and ‘New Century 151 Talent Program’ of Zhejiang Province (Ling Zhang).