Nanoparticles as a Therapeutic Approach for Tumor Angiogenesis

Abstract

In cancer, angiogenesis is a hallmark necessary to supply sufficient nutrients for tumor growth and metastasis to distant sites. Therefore, targeting tumor angiogenesis emerges as an attractive therapeutic modality to retard neoplastic cell growth and dissemination using classes of anti-angiogenic drugs. However, multiple administrations of these drugs show adverse effects, precluding their long-term usage. Conventional chemotherapeutic drugs, natural compounds, carbon-based materials, inorganic and metallic elements, genes, siRNAs, shRNAs, and microRNAs can be incorporated into nanovehicles (e.g. polymers) for delivery to specific targets. This chapter reviews angiogenesis and the underlying molecular mechanisms that regulate this process. Furthermore, this chapter provides an overview on different formulations of nanoparticles or nanovectors that employed to combat cancer, with a special focus on their therapeutic potentials in the context of the suppressive effects on tumor angiogenesis process using in vitro and in vivo models of different tumor entities.