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Review
. 2021 Mar 10;13(3):368.
doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13030368.

Chronicles of Nanoerythrosomes: An Erythrocyte-Based Biomimetic Smart Drug Delivery System as a Therapeutic and Diagnostic Tool in Cancer Therapy

Shamama Javed  1 , Sultan Alshehri  2   3 , Ambreen Shoaib  4 , Waquar Ahsan  5 , Muhammad Hadi Sultan  1 , Saad Saeed Alqahtani  4 , Mohsin Kazi  2 , Faiyaz Shakeel  2
Affiliations
Review

Chronicles of Nanoerythrosomes: An Erythrocyte-Based Biomimetic Smart Drug Delivery System as a Therapeutic and Diagnostic Tool in Cancer Therapy

Shamama Javed et al. Pharmaceutics. .

Abstract

Recently, drug delivery using natural biological carriers has emerged as one of the most widely investigated topics of research. Erythrocytes, or red blood cells, can act as potential carriers for a wide variety of drugs, including anticancer, antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory, along with various proteins, peptides, enzymes, and other macromolecules. The red blood cell-based nanocarrier systems, also called nanoerythrosomes, are nanovesicles poised with extraordinary features such as long blood circulation times, the ability to escape immune system, the ability to release the drug gradually, the protection of drugs from various endogenous factors, targeted and specified delivery of drugs, as well as possessing both therapeutic and diagnostic applications in various fields of biomedical sciences. Their journey over the last two decades is escalating with fast pace, ranging from in vivo to preclinical and clinical studies by encapsulating a number of drugs into these carriers. Being biomimetic nanoparticles, they have enhanced the stability profile of drugs and their excellent site-specific targeting ability makes them potential carrier systems in the diagnosis and therapy of wide variety of tumors including gliomas, lung cancers, breast cancers, colon cancers, gastric cancers, and other solid tumors. This review focuses on the most recent advancements in the field of nanoerythrosomes, as an excellent and promising nanoplatform for the novel drug delivery of various drugs particularly antineoplastic drugs along with their potential as a promising diagnostic tool for the identification of different tumors.

Keywords: biomimetic; cancer therapy; diagnostics; imaging agents; nanoerythrocyte; nanoerythrosome; nanovesicles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Preparation of nanoerythrocytes (NER) from normal erythrocytes (ER).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Role of NERs in cancer therapy.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Summary of red blood cell (RBC)-based anticancer nanoformulations (anti-cancer-loaded-NERs) along with their mechanisms.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Biohybrid microswimmers using genetically modified E. coli bacterium and NERs for targeted cargo-delivery (Image adopted from reference [50], APL Bioeng, 2020, which was published under a creative commons attribution (CC BY) license).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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