Orally delivered targeted nanotherapeutics for the treatment of colorectal cancer

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Colorectal cancer (CRC), the third-most common malignancy, has high morbidity and mortality. Oral nanotherapeutics have emerged as a promising strategy to improve the therapeutic outcomes and alleviate the adverse effects of drugs in CRC treatment.

Areas covered

In this review, we introduce the beneficial features of oral drug administration for CRC therapy, and further address the three basic elements of nanotherapeutics, namely, therapeutic agents, carrier materials, and targeting ligands. In addition, we also discuss the potentials of the new emerging technologies (e.g., immunotherapy, gene editing and microbiota manipulation) in the treatment of CRC.

Expert opinion

Orally delivered targeted nanotherapeutics represent a promising strategy toward the efficient treatment of CRC. Although the current oral nanotherapeutics exert better therapeutic outcomes than the traditional drug formulations, their application has been restricted by drug resistance, tumor metastasis, and biosafety. Therefore, it is necessary to exploit new nanotherapeutics in the aspects of their three basic elements, and combine the new emerging technologies to those nanotherapeutics for CRC treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Oral administration
• targeted drug delivery
• nanoparticle
• colorectal cancer

Article highlights

• Combined application of dual/multi drugs is an effective approach for CRC treatment.

• Surface functionalization of nanotherapeutics with targeting ligands can increase the accumulated amounts of drugs in CRC tissues, resulting in the improvement of therapeutic outcomes and the reduction of adverse effects.

• Environment-responsive nanotherapeutics can optimize the drug release profiles in CRC tissues, and further improve the therapeutic index.

• Combination of novel anti-cancer technologies and nanoplatforms has the potential to achieve much better therapeutic efficacies than traditional nanotherapeutics.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81571807), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (XDJK2019TY002), the Venture & Innovation Support Program for Chongqing Overseas Returnees (cx2018029), and the Chinese Scholarship Council.