title: Delivery of therapeutics with nanoparticles: what's new in cancer immunotherapy?
abstract: The application of nanotechnology to the treatment of cancer or other diseases has been boosted during the last decades due to the possibility to precise deliver drugs where needed, enabling a decrease in the drug's side effects. Nanocarriers are particularly valuable for potentiating the simultaneous co-delivery of multiple drugs in the same particle for the treatment of heavily burdening diseases like cancer. Immunotherapy represents a new concept in the treatment of cancer and has shown outstanding results in patients treated with check-point inhibitors. Thereby, researchers are applying nanotechnology to cancer immunotherapy toward the development of nanocarriers for delivery of cancer vaccines and chemo-immunotherapies. Cancer nanovaccines can be envisioned as nanocarriers co-delivering antigens and adjuvants, molecules often presenting different physicochemical properties, in cancer therapy. A wide range of nanocarriers (e.g., polymeric, lipid-based and inorganic) allow the co-formulation of these molecules, or the delivery of chemo- and immune-therapeutics in the same system. Finally, there is a trend toward the use of biologically inspired and derived nanocarriers. In this review, we present the recent developments in the field of immunotherapy, describing the different systems proposed by categories: polymeric nanoparticles, lipid-based nanosystems, metallic and inorganic nanosystems and, finally, biologically inspired and derived nanovaccines. WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol 2017, 9:e1421. doi: 10.1002/wnan.1421 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Flavia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fontana
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Dongfei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Jouni
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hirvonen
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Hélder A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Santos
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry / Q000627:therapeutic use; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D000068936:Theranostic Nanomedicine