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Nanozymes and Hybrid Nanostructures for Cancer Therapy and Diagnosis

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A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 2738

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Prof. Dr. Herman Sander Mansur

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Center of Nanoscience, Nanotechnology, and Innovation, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil
Interests: nanozymes; nanotheranostics; cancer theranostics; nanomedicine; nanoparticles for cancer diagnosis and therapy; cancer nanomedicine; hybrid nanoparticles; nanohybrids; supramolecular nanostructures; biosensors; nanosensors; fluorescent nanoparticles; bioconjugates; nanoconjugates; magnetic nanoparticles; nanoarchitectonics; biomaterials; tissue engineering
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Dr. Alexandra Ancelmo Piscitelli Mansur

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Center of Nanoscience, Nanotechnology, and Innovation, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil
Interests: nanozymes; nanotheranostics; cancer nanomedicine; nanostructures for cancer diagnosis and therapy; hybrid nanoparticles; supramolecular nanostructures; fluorescent nanoparticles; bioconjugates; nanoconjugates; magnetic nanoparticles; nanoarchitectonics; tissue engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Despite extraordinary progress in cancer diagnosis and therapy in recent years, cancer remains one of the leading causes of death for humans, with nearly 20 million new cases and 10 million deaths worldwide in 2020. Regrettably, the currently available treatments mostly rely on conventional therapies involving surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and sometimes combining two or more. Thus, nanotechnology combined with medicine, termed nanomedicine, can drastically alter this scenario by offering innovative advanced multifunctional nanosystems for fighting cancer. Nanozymes, a type of novel nanomaterials with enzyme-like activity, have shown great potential to replace natural enzymes in cancer diagnosis and therapy (nanotheranostics). Since the pioneering work of Gao and Collaborators (2007) with magnetite nanoparticles demonstrating the peroxidase-like catalytic activity, nanomaterials with enzyme-like activities, including metals, metal oxide compounds, metal-carbon and other nanostructures with biocatalytic properties have been developed focused on biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Compared with natural enzymes, nanozymes have attracted widespread interest due to their superior thermal and chemical stability, high catalytic efficiency, biosafety, relatively low cost, and easy preparation. In this view, as an emerging type of artificial biomimetic enzyme, nanozymes and hybrid nanostructures offer the advantage of amalgamating the characteristics of nanomaterials and enzymes for a breadth of potential applications and promising alternatives to circumvent the current challenges to play a pivotal role in cancer nanomedicine for diagnosis and therapy.

We are pleased to invite researchers engaged in the fascinating realm of multidisciplinary knowledge of Nanozymes and Hybrid Nanostructures to participate in a Special Issue of the journal by submitting their articles for publication in Pharmaceutics.

This Special Issue aims to gather contributions of studies and reviews with the most recent achievements of nanozymes and hybrid nanostructures in different cancer diagnosis and treatment technologies by highlighting their advantages in innovative applications. Reports investigating nanozymes and “smart” nanostructures are expected, comprising rational design, synthesis processes (“bottom-up” and “top-down”), characterization techniques (e.g., analytical and bioimaging), tumor-targeting activity, in vitro, in vivo, and clinical applications, converging to cancer diagnosis and therapy. In addition, up-to-date reviews offering a critical view of challenges, future research directions, and perspectives on using nanozymes in this rapidly developing field of cancer nanomedicine and nanotheranostics are welcome, which may help for the next breakthroughs.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Herman Sander Mansur
Dr. Alexandra Ancelmo Piscitelli Mansur
Guest Editors

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Keywords

nanozymes
nanoparticles
nanocarriers
cancer nanomedicine
nanoformulations for cancer theranostics
nanotheranostics
hybrid nanostructures
nanohybrids
tumor targeting
smart drug delivery systems
biocatalytic and nanocatalytic tumor therapy
nanomaterials for multimodal cancer diagnosis and therapy

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29 pages, 5216 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Nanozymes with Peroxidase-like Activity for Ferroptosis-Driven Biocatalytic Nanotherapeutics of Glioblastoma Cancer: 2D and 3D Spheroids Models

by Sandhra M. Carvalho, Alexandra A. P. Mansur, Izabela B. da Silveira, Thaisa F. S. Pires, Henrique F. V. Victória, Klaus Krambrock, M. Fátima Leite and Herman S. Mansur

Pharmaceutics 2023, 15(6), 1702; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15061702 - 10 Jun 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2360

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain cancer in adults. Despite the remarkable advancements in recent years in the realm of cancer diagnosis and therapy, regrettably, GBM remains the most lethal form of brain cancer. In this view, the fascinating area of nanotechnology has emerged as an innovative strategy for developing novel nanomaterials for cancer nanomedicine, such as artificial enzymes, termed nanozymes, with intrinsic enzyme-like activities. Therefore, this study reports for the first time the design, synthesis, and extensive characterization of innovative colloidal nanostructures made of cobalt-doped iron oxide nanoparticles chemically stabilized by a carboxymethylcellulose capping ligand (i.e., Co-MION), creating a peroxidase-like (POD) nanozyme for biocatalytically killing GBM cancer cells. These nanoconjugates were produced using a strictly green aqueous process under mild conditions to create non-toxic bioengineered nanotherapeutics against GBM cells. The nanozyme (Co-MION) showed a magnetite inorganic crystalline core with a uniform spherical morphology (diameter, 2R = 6–7 nm) stabilized by the CMC biopolymer, producing a hydrodynamic diameter (H_D) of 41–52 nm and a negatively charged surface (ZP~−50 mV). Thus, we created supramolecular water-dispersible colloidal nanostructures composed of an inorganic core (Cox-MION) and a surrounding biopolymer shell (CMC). The nanozymes confirmed the cytotoxicity evaluated by an MTT bioassay using a 2D culture in vitro of U87 brain cancer cells, which was concentration-dependent and boosted by increasing the cobalt-doping content in the nanosystems. Additionally, the results confirmed that the lethality of U87 brain cancer cells was predominantly caused by the production of toxic cell-damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS) through the in situ generation of hydroxyl radicals (·OH) by the peroxidase-like activity displayed by nanozymes. Thus, the nanozymes induced apoptosis (i.e., programmed cell death) and ferroptosis (i.e., lipid peroxidation) pathways by intracellular biocatalytic enzyme-like activity. More importantly, based on the 3D spheroids model, these nanozymes inhibited tumor growth and remarkably reduced the malignant tumor volume after the nanotherapeutic treatment (ΔV~40%). The kinetics of the anticancer activity of these novel nanotherapeutic agents decreased with the time of incubation of the GBM 3D models, indicating a similar trend commonly observed in tumor microenvironments (TMEs). Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the 2D in vitro model overestimated the relative efficiency of the anticancer agents (i.e., nanozymes and the DOX drug) compared to the 3D spheroid models. These findings are notable as they evidenced that the 3D spheroid model resembles more precisely the TME of “real” brain cancer tumors in patients than 2D cell cultures. Thus, based on our groundwork, 3D tumor spheroid models might be able to offer transitional systems between conventional 2D cell cultures and complex biological in vivo models for evaluating anticancer agents more precisely. These nanotherapeutics offer a wide avenue of opportunities to develop innovative nanomedicines for fighting against cancerous tumors and reducing the frequency of severe side effects in conventionally applied chemotherapy-based treatments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanozymes and Hybrid Nanostructures for Cancer Therapy and Diagnosis)

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