Promoting Inter-/Intra- Cellular Process of Nanomedicine through its Physicochemical Properties Optimization

BACKGROUND: Nanomedicine, which is defined as application of nanoparticles in medicine, has offered new hopes for overcoming the drawbacks appeared in traditional chemotherapy. The size of nanomedicine normally in the range from 1 to 200 nm endows its potential applications in cancer therapy. But in clinics, there is still a gap between the in vitro physicochemical properties and the cellular level performance. METHOD: The physicochemical properties include size, shape, surface chemistry, surface topology, and surface properties strongly affect nanomedicine inter-/intra-cellular efficiency. Herein, this article reviews effects of physicochemical properties of nanomedicine on the cellular endocytosis and intracellular route. And strategies of nanomedicine optimization are also discussed from different perspectives. RESULTS: On the one hand, not as that of the traditional small molecular agents, the cellular endocytosis pathway and efficiency of nanomedicine is related to its size, structure and surface properties. On the other hand, the intracellular conditions also affect the intracellular route of nanomedicine. CONCLUSION: Nanomedicine of different scale size is internalized through different pathways. While different sensitivities to intracellular conditions determined by physicochemical properties of nanomedicine will lead to different cellular consumption. So, both the properties of nanomedicine and the intracellular conditions play important roles in cellular metabolism. Consequently, nanocarriers finely engineered as the above principles can provide practical solution to the problems appeared in cellular level for promoting traditional cancer therapy.