Sialic acid-modified docetaxel cationic liposomes: double targeting of tumor-associated macrophages and tumor endothelial cells.

Taxane drugs are clinically used for the treatment of many types of cancers due to their excellent antitumor effects. However, the surfactants contained in the injections currently used in the clinic may have serious toxic side effects on the organism, making it necessary to develop new dosage forms. Cationic liposomes have been widely used in antitumor research because of their advantage of preferentially targeting tumor neovascularization, but antitumor by targeting tumor vasculature alone does not necessarily provide good results.

Sialic acid-modified doxorubicin liposomes target tumor-related immune cells to relieve multiple inhibitions of CD8 T cells.

In different types of cancer treatments, cancer-specific T cells are required for effective anticancer immunity, which has a central role in cancer immunotherapy. However, due to the multiple inhibitions of CD8 T cells by tumor-related immune cells, CD8 T-cell mediated antitumor immunotherapy has not achieved breakthrough progress in the treatment of solid tumors. Receptors for sialic acid (SA) are highly expressed in tumor-associated immune cells, so SA-modified nanoparticles are a drug delivery nanoplatform using tumor-associated immune cells as vehicles.

Optimization design of sialic acid derivatives enhances the performance of liposomes for modulating immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments.

Aims: Sialic acid derivatives (SA-derivatives) provide a nanomedicine platform for tumor-targeted delivery and treatment, and allow modulation of immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments with excellent therapeutic effects. Further, the multi-reactive groups of sialic acid (SA) contribute to the diversity of SA derivatives, which inevitably has implications for drug delivery systems and tumor therapy. However, relevant research remains lacking at present.