Table 1.
Main features of cell-based nanoparticle delivery systems in cancer therapy.
| Cell Type | Delivery System |
Therapeutic Mechanism | Target | Tolerability | Life Span |
Main Drawabacks |
Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platlets | Membrane-coated gold nanostars containing curcumin (ghost-cells) |
NIR Controlled release |
Melanoma primary tumor; Possible metastasis |
YES (source: autologous blood) |
7-–10 days | No proliferation; Issues with purification; |
[40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57] |
| Neutrophils | Albumin-NPs loaded with pyropheophorbide-a, and anti-GP75 mAb | Photodynamic therapy | Melanoma primary tumor; Metastasis |
Yes (source: autologous blood) |
7 days in vivo Few hours in vitro |
Short life | [58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80] |
| Monocytes | SPIONs- or Au nanoshells-loaded; liposome-doxorubicin-loaded |
Hyperthermia; Release of encapsulated therapeutic cargos |
Pancreatic cancer; breast cancer; experimental lung metastases of melanoma |
Yes (source: autologous blood) |
1–3 days for circulating cells; years for tissue-resident Mϕ |
Liver, spleen and lungs sequestration; direct toxic effects of NP-chemotherapeutic cargos |
[81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89] |
| Lymphocytes | Internal or surface-immobilized NP systemic delivery of engineered CAR-T cross-linked to multilamellar liposomal vescicles (cMLV) containing a specific inhibitor (SHC) of immunosuppressor A2aR | Inhibition of the tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. | Experimental human ovarian cancer; Experimental chronic myelogenous leukemia; Possible metastasis |
Yes | 4 days–5 weeks for B cells, months -years for T cells | Acute anaphylaxis; tumor lysis syndrome (TLS); cytokine release syndrome (CRS) | [90,91,92] |
| Red blood cells | Loaded with SPIONs in hypotonic solutions; hijacked with SPIONs or polymeric NP; DOX-loaded hollow copper sulfide NPs coated with RBC and melanoma cell membranes; enveloped polymeric nanoplatform |
Photothermal therapy (PTT); Chemotherapy; Anti-tumor immunity |
Glioblastoma; melanoma; | Yes (source: autologous blood) |
3months | None | [14], [93,94,95,96,97,98,99] |
| NSCs or iPSCs | Loaded with aminosiloxane-porphyrin functionalized magnetic NPs with core/shell Fe/Fe(3)O | Magnetic hyperthermia | Primary melanoma | Yes (NCS: autologous origin); (iPSC:Low immunogenicity) |
Self renewing when cultured and expanded | NSC: difficult to prepare; iPSC, potential induction of teratomas after in vivo transplant. |
[100,101,102,103,104,105,106] |
| MSCs | Loaded with SPIONs, silica or Au-NP |
Magnetic or plasmonic hyperthermia | Breast cancer; glioblastoma; human fibrosarcoma; | Yes: autologous or allogeneic origin , prepared from the wall of umbilical cord vessels | Self renewing when cultured and expanded | Cell-mediated and humoral immune responses to MHC-mismatched MSC | [107,108,109,110,111,112,113,114,115,116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129] |
| ECFCs | Labelled with 111-In loaded with Au-NP |
Phothermal therapy | Primary melanoma |
Yes: autologous or allogeneic origin, prepared from umbilical cord blood |
Self renewing when cultured and expanded | No major cell-mediated and humoral immune responses to MHC-mismatched MSC | [130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137,138,139,140,141] |
Abbreviations: NSCs, neural stem cells; iPSCs, induced pluripotent stem cells; MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells; ECFCs, endothelial colony forming cells; SPIONs, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles; Au-nanoshells; gold nanoshell; CAR-T, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell; NIR, near infrared.