Department of Breast Surgery, Southwest Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, China.
Institute of Burn Research, Southwest Hospital, State Key Lab of Trauma, Burn and Combined Injury, Army Medical University, Chongqing, 400038, China.
J Nanobiotechnology. 2021 Jul 22;19(1):220. doi: 10.1186/s12951-021-00965-7.
Chirality is a fundamental characteristic of natural molecules and a crucial factor in the biochemical reactions of living cells and organisms. Recently, researchers have successfully introduced chiral molecules to the surfaces of nanomaterials, creating chiral nanomaterials that exhibit an upscaling of chiral behavior from the molecular scale to the nanoscale. These chiral nanomaterials can selectively induce autophagy, apoptosis, and photothermal ablation in tumor cells based on their chirality, making them promising for application in anti-tumor therapy. However, these interesting and important phenomena have hitherto received little attention. Accordingly, we herein present a review of recent research progress in the field of chiral nanomaterials for tumor therapy along with brief looks at the mechanistic details of their actions. Finally, the current challenges and future perspectives of chiral nanomaterials in terms of maximizing their potential in tumor therapy are discussed. Thus, this review provides a helpful introduction to the design of chiral nanomaterials and will hopefully highlight the importance of chirality in tumor therapy.
手性是天然分子的基本特征，也是活细胞和生物体生化反应的关键因素。最近，研究人员成功地将手性分子引入纳米材料的表面，创造了手性纳米材料，其手性行为从分子尺度扩展到纳米尺度。这些手性纳米材料可以基于其手性选择性地诱导肿瘤细胞自噬、凋亡和光热消融，因此在抗肿瘤治疗中有很大的应用潜力。然而，这些有趣且重要的现象迄今尚未引起太多关注。因此，本文综述了近年来在手性纳米材料用于肿瘤治疗方面的研究进展，并简要探讨了其作用的机制细节。最后，讨论了手性纳米材料在最大限度发挥其在肿瘤治疗中的潜力方面目前面临的挑战和未来展望。因此，本综述为手性纳米材料的设计提供了有益的介绍，并有望强调手性在肿瘤治疗中的重要性。
