title: Nanomedicine strategies for sustained, controlled and targeted treatment of cancer stem cells.
abstract: Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are original cancer cells that are of characteristics associated with normal stem cells. CSCs are toughest against various treatments and thus responsible for cancer metastasis and recurrence. Therefore, development of specific and effective treatment of CSCs plays a key role in improving survival and life quality of cancer patients, especially those in the metastatic stage. Nanomedicine strategies, which include prodrugs, micelles, liposomes and nanoparticles of biodegradable polymers, could substantially improve the therapeutic index of conventional therapeutics due to its manner of sustained, controlled and targeted delivery of high transportation efficiency across the cell membrane and low elimination by intracellular autophagy, and thus provide a practical solution to solve the problem encountered in CSCs treatment. This review gives briefly the latest information to summarize the concept, strategies, mechanisms and current status as well as future promises of nanomedicine strategies for treatment of CSCs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, the Second Military Medical University, 325 Guohe Road, Shanghai 200433, China.|Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: International Joint Cancer Institute, The Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiang Yin Road, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: International Joint Cancer Institute, The Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiang Yin Road, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yajun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: International Joint Cancer Institute, The Second Military Medical University, 800 Xiang Yin Road, Shanghai 200433, China.|Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Block E5, 02-11, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117576, Singapore.|Suzhou NanoStar Biopharm Inc. Ltd, BioBay, Bld B2, Unit 604, 218 Xing-Hu Street, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China.
authors.forename: Si-Shen
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Feng
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000639:trends; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000737:chemistry; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000187:drug effects*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D011108:Polymers
keywords: biodegradable polymers; cancer nanotechnology; drug targeting; molecular biomaterials; multidrug resistance; multimodality treatment; pharmaceutical nanotechnology