Abstract
Cancer is among the most dreadful fatal diseases globally, and the efficacy of recent chemotherapeutic approaches is limited due to many related drawbacks. The major limitation associated with cancer chemotherapy is the poor aqueous solubility of most of the anticancer drugs, development of multidrug resistance, low bioavailability, small plasma half-life, and serious side effects to healthy tissues due to unspecific distribution of chemotherapeutic drugs. Advancement in nanoscience provides the means of specific and selective targeting of cancer cells. Chitosan, one of the naturally occurring biocompatible and mucoadhesive biopolymers that have been widely used in recent years for the effective delivery of anti-cancer drugs at the target site. Chitosan nanoparticles can encapsulate both hydrophilic and lipophilic chemotherapeutic drugs, proteins/peptides as well as different genetic materials like DNA, miRNA, siRNA, etc. in their polymeric matrix. Due to the unique polymeric matrix, these nanoparticles improve the solubility as well as the stability of encapsulated molecules in the biological system. Chitosan nanoparticles can improve the pharmacokinetic profile as well as the therapeutic efficacy of encapsulated drugs by controlling the release rates and targeted delivery process. These nanoparticles selectively deliver the encapsulated drugs to desired sites through passive or active targeting mechanisms thereby decrease the undesirable side-effects. The surface of chitosan nanoparticles can be modified with different ligands like antibodies, proteins, peptides, polysaccharides, and nucleic acids to achieve selective targeting. This review will provide a state-of-the-art perspective on recent development in chitosan-nanoparticles for smart anti-cancer therapeutic delivery.