Nanostructured Materials as an Analytical Strategy to Unravel and Treat Human Diseases: The Practical Challenges Behind the Theory

Abstract

In recent years, the world has witnessed important progress in the field of nanotechnology, which has strongly impacted the various fields of science and industry, creating new applications in electronics, medicine, and energy storage. In this sense, several nanoscale materials with different compositions have been produced and reported in the literature. Nanomaterials can be classified according to their composition. For example, silicon dioxide (SiO2), quantum dots (QDs), carbon dots (CDs), and nanoparticles (metallic and non-metallic), among others, have been widely synthetized and applied in several area. In nanomedicine, more specifically, the literature shows that nanoscale materials have shown numerous advantages, including unravelling and/or treating human diseases. In theory, due to unique optical properties, relative stability, high brightness, high quantum yield, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, some nanomaterials can be used as promising tools to assist in the generation of bioimages, diagnosis, and treatments of human diseases. To guarantee specific interactions between nanoparticles and cells, the adsorptive properties of nanomaterials are altered by the selective functionalization of the particles, allowing different clinical applications. For example, Zhang et al. reported a new method for cancer identification called multiplexed nanomaterial-assisted laser desorption/ionization for cancer identification (MNALCI). In this study, Au/SiO2 core/shell nanoparticles were used as the nanostructured material. The MNALCI was applied to 1,183 subjects, including 233 healthy controls and 950 patients with different types of cancer from two independent cohorts. MNALCI demonstrated a sensitivity of 93% to 91% to distinguish cancers from healthy controls. Satisfactory accuracy and minimal sample consumption make MNALCI a promising solution for non-invasive cancer diagnosis. In another study, magnetic NPs (MNPs), combined with oligomer-specific antibodies targeting neurotoxic beta-amyloid oligomers (AβOs), were evaluated in vitro and in vivo for imaging neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, nanocomposites (natural or synthetic) have been used as nanocarriers to carry out controlled drug delivery to target regions and even for reconstitution of necrotic tissues (tissue engineering).