Abstract
Despite having a rich history as a poison, arsenic and its compounds have also gained a great reputation as promising anticancer drugs. As a pioneer, arsenic trioxide has been approved for the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia. Many in vitro studies suggested that arsenic trioxide could also be used in the treatment of solid tumors. However, the transition from bench to bedside turned out to be challenging, especially in terms of the drug bioavailability and concentration reaching tumor tissues. To address these issues, nanomedicine tools have been proposed. As nanocarriers of arsenic trioxide, various materials have been examined including liposomes, polymer, and inorganic nanoparticles, and many other materials. This review gives an overview of the existing strategies of delivery of arsenic trioxide in cancer treatment with a focus on the drug encapsulation approaches and medicinal impact in the treatment of solid tumors. It focuses on the progress in the last years and gives an outlook and suggestions for further improvements including theragnostic approaches and targeted delivery.
Highlights
| INTRODUCTION“The King of Poisons”[1] or a “magic bullet”2—the attributes researchers have given arsenic trioxide (ATO) in the course of its use in medical treatment reflect its paradoxical properties
Galactose‐binding asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR) is a receptor primarily expressed in the liver and not in other human tissues, it constitutes an interesting target for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)‐directed drug delivery.[103]
The authors showed for two different nanoparticle compositions that surface modification with lactobionic acid led to a decreased toxicity of arsenic trioxide (ATO)‐NPs in normal hepatocytes in comparison to the toxic effect in HCC cells in vitro.[56,57]
Summary
“The King of Poisons”[1] or a “magic bullet”2—the attributes researchers have given arsenic trioxide (ATO) in the course of its use in medical treatment reflect its paradoxical properties. When ATO is loaded into liposomes, the neutral As(OH)[3] molecules (which are predominant at pH< 9.0) diffuse readily across the phospholipid membrane making the drug entrapment difficult To overcome this issue, an encapsulation employing transmembrane gradients of transition metal ions (e.g., Ni(II), Co(II), Zn(II), and Pt(II)) to produce insoluble complexes with As(III) was proposed in 200682 and extensively studied in the later years. During the cycle of loading ATO into a liposome, the neutral As(OH)[3] diffuses across the lipid membrane and reacts with the metal(II) ions to form insoluble metal(II) arsenite complexes inside the TABLE 1 Overview of DDSs for ATO based on organic materials reported since 2014 and discussed in this review
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
