Stimuli-responsive prodrug-based cancer nanomedicine
Angel Xie,
Sumaira Hanif,
Jiang Ouyang,
Zhongmin Tang,
Na Kong,
Na Yoon Kim,
Baowen Qi,
Dylan Patel,
Bingyang Shi,
Wei Tao
Affiliations
Angel Xie
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Singapore American School, Singapore, 738547
Sumaira Hanif
Henan-Macquarie Uni Joint Centre for Biomedical Innovation, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan 475004, China
Jiang Ouyang
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410083, China; Corresponding authors.
Zhongmin Tang
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Na Kong
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Na Yoon Kim
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Baowen Qi
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Dylan Patel
Jericho High School, New York, NY 11753, USA
Bingyang Shi
Henan-Macquarie Uni Joint Centre for Biomedical Innovation, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan 475004, China; Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia; Corresponding authors.
Wei Tao
Center for Nanomedicine and Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Corresponding authors.
The rapid development of nanotechnology results in the emergence of nanomedicines, but the effective delivery of drugs to tumor sites remains a great challenge. Prodrug-based cancer nanomedicines thus emerged due to their unique advantages, including high drug load efficiency, reduced side effects, efficient targeting, and real-time controllability. A distinctive characteristic of prodrug-based nanomedicines is that they need to be activated by a stimulus or multi-stimulus to produce an anti-tumor effect. A better understanding of various responsive approaches could allow researchers to perceive the mechanism of prodrug-based nanomedicines effectively and further optimize their design strategy. In this review, we highlight the stimuli-responsive pathway of prodrug-based nanomedicines and their anticancer applications. Furthermore, various types of prodrug-based nanomedicines, recent progress and prospects of stimuli-responsive prodrug-based nanomedicines and patient data in the clinical application are also summarized. Additionally, the current development and future challenges of prodrug-based nanomedicines are discussed. We expect that this review will be valuable for readers to gain a deeper understanding of the structure and development of prodrug-based cancer nanomedicines to design rational and effective drugs for clinical use.
