Fatfat Z, Fatfat M, Gali-Muhtasib H. Micelles as potential drug delivery systems for colorectal cancer treatment. World J Gastroenterol 2022; 28(25): 2867-2880 [PMID: 35978871 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i25.2867]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hala Gali-Muhtasib, PhD, Professor, Department of Biology, and Center for Drug Discovery, American University of Beirut, Bliss street, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon. amro@aub.edu.lb
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 7, 2022; 28(25): 2867-2880 Published online Jul 7, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i25.2867
Micelles as potential drug delivery systems for colorectal cancer treatment
Zaynab Fatfat, Maamoun Fatfat, Hala Gali-Muhtasib
Zaynab Fatfat, Maamoun Fatfat, Hala Gali-Muhtasib, Department of Biology, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
Hala Gali-Muhtasib, Center for Drug Discovery, American University of Beirut, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
Author contributions: Fatfat Z and Fatfat M reviewed the literature and drafted the manuscript; Gali-Muhtasib H initiated the idea and revised the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hala Gali-Muhtasib, PhD, Professor, Department of Biology, and Center for Drug Discovery, American University of Beirut, Bliss street, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon. amro@aub.edu.lb
Received: January 15, 2022 Peer-review started: January 15, 2022 First decision: March 8, 2022 Revised: March 22, 2022 Accepted: May 27, 2022 Article in press: May 27, 2022 Published online: July 7, 2022 Processing time: 170 Days and 1.6 Hours
Abstract
Despite the significant progress in cancer therapy, colorectal cancer (CRC) remains one of the most fatal malignancies worldwide. Chemotherapy is currently the mainstay therapeutic modality adopted for CRC treatment. However, the long-term effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs has been hampered by their low bioavailability, non-selective tumor targeting mechanisms, non-specific biodistribution associated with low drug concentrations at the tumor site and undesirable side effects. Over the last decade, there has been increasing interest in using nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems to circumvent these limitations. Various nanoparticles have been developed for delivering chemotherapeutic drugs among which polymeric micelles are attractive candidates. Polymeric micelles are biocompatible nanocarriers that can bypass the biological barriers and preferentially accumulate in tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention effect. They can be easily engineered with stimuli-responsive and tumor targeting moieties to further ensure their selective uptake by cancer cells and controlled drug release at the desirable tumor site. They have been shown to effectively improve the pharmacokinetic properties of chemotherapeutic drugs and enhance their safety profile and anticancer efficacy in different types of cancer. Given that combination therapy is the new strategy implemented in cancer therapy, polymeric micelles are suitable for multidrug delivery and allow drugs to act concurrently at the action site to achieve synergistic therapeutic outcomes. They also allow the delivery of anticancer genetic material along with chemotherapy drugs offering a novel approach for CRC therapy. Here, we highlight the properties of polymeric micelles that make them promising drug delivery systems for CRC treatment. We also review their application in CRC chemotherapy and gene therapy as well as in combination cancer chemotherapy.
Core Tip: Polymeric micelle-based drug delivery has demonstrated promising therapeutic outcomes against colorectal cancer. These safe nanocarriers exhibit high encapsulation efficiency of chemotherapeutic drugs, improve their water solubility and enhance the stability of nucleic acid-based therapeutics. They also accumulate preferentially at colorectal cancer sites, increase the anticancer effect of the delivered therapeutics and reduce their side effects. Incorporating stimuli-responsive and tumor targeting moieties to their structure further enhances their targeting and therapeutic efficacy. This platform also provides an opportunity to simultaneously deliver different chemotherapeutic drugs or nucleic acid-based therapeutics with chemotherapeutic drugs to the colorectal tumor to achieve an enhanced anticancer response.
