A study team led by Professor WU Zhengyan in Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science published a review paper on pH-sensitive nanotheranostic in Current Medicinal Chemistry.

The review focuses on the designs of various pH-responsive nanoplatforms and discusses the mechanisms of controlled drug release or switch on-off in magnetic resonance contrast agents (MRCAs).

In the review, the team also discusses the efficacy of cellular internalization for these nanoplatforms via endocytosis of acidic tumor cell as well as nanoplatforms response to acidic intracellular pH (such as endosome, lysosome), along with approaches to improve drug release performance and magnetic resonance contrast enhancement.

Traditional anticancer drugs and magnetic resonance contrast agents cannot efficiently exert their role in the tumor sites, due to the difficulty for them to distinguish tumor and normal tissues.

Over the decades, stimuli-responsive nanomaterials have been a research hotspot for cancer treatment and diagnosis because they show many excellent functions, such as in vivo imaging, combined targeting drug delivery and systemic controlled release, extended circulation time, etc.

Among the various stimuli nanosystems, pH-sensitive nanotheranostic displays significantly higher drug release and magnetic resonance (MR) contrast effect under the acid condition in tumor tissue.

The dominant mechanism is that the structures and surface characteristics of these nanoplatforms will change in acidic tumor microenvironment, which can promote the drug release and enhance the MR contrast effect.

This paper might have a potential value to promote the sustainable development of novel pH-responsive nanotheranostics.

Link to the paper: Nanostructures for pH-sensitive drug delivery and magnetic resonance contrast enhancement systems.

pH-responsive nanoplatforms (Image by SUN Xiao)

Contact:

WU Zhengyan

Institute of Technical Biology and Agriculture Engineering

Hefei, Anhui 230031, P. R. China.

Email: zywu@ipp.ac.cn