Oxygen Delivery Microcapsules provide a Novel Strategy for the Treatment of Cancer

Abstract

Intratumoral hypoxia is a primary characteristic of tumors and leads to increased activity of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs), which contributes to tumor growth, aggressiveness, metastasis, immune evasion, cancer stem cell maintenance, drug resistance, and so on. In the past years, many studies focus on different strategies to target HIFs. Recently, Wu et al. created an effective oxygen delivery vehicle of polydopamine-microcapsules, which effectively improves the hypoxia microenvironment. The review was carried out from three aspects: the mechanism of hypoxia promoting tumor progression, the characteristic and preparation of oxygen microcapsules, and the prospect of oxygen microcapsules in tumor therapy. In summary, oxygen microcapsules provide a new strategy for targeting hypoxia tumor microenvironment and may shed light on the treatment of cancer.