Multifunctional nanoparticle composites: progress in the use of soft and hard nanoparticles for drug delivery and imaging

• Published in: Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology 2017-11, Vol.9 (6), p.e1466-n/a
• Main Authors: Sangtani, Ajmeeta, Nag, Okhil K., Field, Lauren D., Breger, Joyce C., Delehanty, James B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Cytotoxicity; Diagnostic Imaging; Drug delivery; Drug Delivery Systems; Formulations; Hardness; Humans; Imaging; Liposomes; Metals; Nanoparticles; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Nanoparticles - toxicity; Noble metals; Oxides; Quantum dots; Theranostic Nanomedicine; Toxicity
• ISSN: 1939-5116; 1939-0041
• DOI: 10.1002/wnan.1466

With continued advancements in nanoparticle (NP) synthesis and in the interfacing of NPs with biological systems has come the exponential growth in the use of NPs for therapeutic drug delivery and imaging applications. In recent years, the advent of NP multifunctionality—the ability to perform multiple, disparate functions on a single NP platform—has garnered much excitement for the potential realization of highly functional NP‐mediated drug delivery for use in the clinical setting. This Overview will survey the current state of the art (reports published within the last 5 years) of multifunctional NPs for therapeutic drug delivery, imaging or a combination thereof. We provide extensive examples of both soft (micelles, liposomes, polymeric NPs) and hard (noble metals, quantum dots, metal oxides) NP formulations that have been used for multimodal drug delivery and imaging. The criteria for inclusion, herein, is that there must be at least two therapeutic drug cargos or imaging agents or a combination of the two. We next offer an assessment of the cytotoxicity of therapeutic NP constructs in biological systems. We then conclude with a forward‐looking perspective on how we expect this field to develop in the coming years. WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol 2017, 9:e1466. doi: 10.1002/wnan.1466 This article is categorized under: Diagnostic Tools > Diagnostic Nanodevices Diagnostic Tools > In Vitro Nanoparticle-Based Sensing Diagnostic Tools > In Vivo Nanodiagnostics and Imaging Multifunctional therapeutic nanoparticles (NPs) encompass soft and hard NP materials and their implementation requires careful consideration of numerous critical factors.