Nanoplatform-based cellular reactive oxygen species regulation for enhanced oncotherapy and tumor resistance alleviation

The cancer cells realize their proliferation and metastasis activities based on the special redox adaptation to increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, which inversely makes them sensitive to external interference with their redox state. In view of this, in recent decades, researchers have made great efforts to construct a series of novel nanoplatform-based ROS-mediated cancer therapies through increasing ROS generation and inhibiting the ROS elimination. Besides, the multidrug resistance and thermoresistance of tumor are closely related to tumor redox state. Recently, numerous works have shown that ROS regulation in cancer cells can intervene in the expression, function and stability of related proteins to achieve reversal of tumor resistance. In this review, the recent researches about ROS-regulating nanoagents on cancer therapy and tumor resistance alleviation have been well summarized. Finally, the challenges and research directions of ROS-regulating nanoagents for future clinical translation are also discussed.