Figure 2.

Illustration of the strategies for modulating tumor stroma for therapy. NPs injected intravenously can interact with blood vessel endothelium (1) or extravasate into the tumor stroma through the leaky tumor vasculature and bind to the ECM (2). For other applications, MSC tropism towards tumor can be used to modify the tumor stroma or induce apoptosis in cancer cells (3). MSC can be loaded with NPs that are released within tumors (4) or transformed to secrete proteins that inhibit tumor growth (5).