Pharmaceutica Analytica Acta

Abstract

Effects of Intracellular Process on the Therapeutic Activation of Nanomedicine

Wei Li, Fulei Zhang, Mengxin Zhao, Xiandi Zhu, Cheng Jiang, Changhong Ke, Ge Zhang, He Zhao, Yun Sun, Di Chen, Sufen Li, Wei Dong, Shangjing Guo and Hui Liu

In this article, we review the endocytosis ways of nanoscale materials and how they work. Surrounded by FBS in culture medium, the special nanomedicines, entering into lysosome via endosome or autophagosome, are degraded by many kinds of enzymes, and are finally snagged. During this process, they are interacting with lysosome membrane, hence the lysosome membrane changes in permeation. With a weak damage extent of lysosome, the nanoparticles escape the damage effect of lysosome, and interact with other organelles (for example mitochondria, proteins), resulting in their defeature and being swallowed by autophagosomes. Now that lysosomes are damaged, the autophagosomes won’t be digested by lysosomes. With accumulation of endosomes, the cancer cells accelerate the aging process or apoptosis. If lysosomes are strongly destabilized, the cathepsin B/D will interact with caspase family, causing necrosis or apoptosis of cancer cells. So we recognise that the lysosome is key for cancer cell death.