Conde João, Doria Gonçalo, Baptista Pedro
CIGMH, Departamento de Ciências da Vida, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
J Drug Deliv. 2012;2012:751075. doi: 10.1155/2012/751075. Epub 2011 Oct 5.
Nanotechnology has prompted new and improved materials for biomedical applications with particular emphasis in therapy and diagnostics. Special interest has been directed at providing enhanced molecular therapeutics for cancer, where conventional approaches do not effectively differentiate between cancerous and normal cells; that is, they lack specificity. This normally causes systemic toxicity and severe and adverse side effects with concomitant loss of quality of life. Because of their small size, nanoparticles can readily interact with biomolecules both at surface and inside cells, yielding better signals and target specificity for diagnostics and therapeutics. This way, a variety of nanoparticles with the possibility of diversified modification with biomolecules have been investigated for biomedical applications including their use in highly sensitive imaging assays, thermal ablation, and radiotherapy enhancement as well as drug and gene delivery and silencing. Here, we review the available noble metal nanoparticles for cancer therapy, with particular focus on those already being translated into clinical settings.
纳米技术催生了用于生物医学应用的新型改良材料，尤其在治疗和诊断方面受到特别关注。人们特别关注为癌症提供增强型分子疗法，因为传统方法无法有效区分癌细胞和正常细胞；也就是说，它们缺乏特异性。这通常会导致全身毒性以及严重的不良副作用，同时生活质量下降。由于纳米颗粒尺寸小，它们能够在细胞表面和内部与生物分子轻松相互作用，从而为诊断和治疗产生更好的信号和靶向特异性。通过这种方式，人们已经研究了多种可通过生物分子进行多样化修饰的纳米颗粒在生物医学中的应用，包括用于高灵敏度成像检测、热消融、放疗增强以及药物和基因递送与沉默。在此，我们综述了可用于癌症治疗的贵金属纳米颗粒，特别关注那些已进入临床应用阶段的纳米颗粒。
