Cancer means growing cells in particular area of body in an abnormal way as well as in an invasive way. When it spreads to other parts of the body becomes incurable. This process is called metastasis. There are several traditional anti-cancer therapies such as surgical, radio therapy, chemotherapy to cure or stop cancers.
Though they are much advanced, they still have large scale lacunas. One of them is the generation of resistance. This may lead to have alternate therapies. They are gene therapy, Dichloroacetate therapy, complementary therapy, insulin potentiating therapy and bacterial treatments. All of these therapies contain deep rooted potential to cure the cancer and as well as side issues.
Therefore a treatment with more potentiality as well as less number of side effects has to be selected. Recently nano-technology opened many doors in cancer therapy. Magneotatic bacteria (MTB) and their magnetosomes offer great promise in cancer therapy in various ways.
These magnetotactic bacteria are omnipresent, aquatic and motile bacteria that can mineralize magnetosome. That magnetosomes are organelle with nano-sized magnetic magnetite (Fe3O4) or greigite (Fe3S4) crystals. They are in various arrangements. These crystals are encased by a membrance which can control the crystal size and morphology. It also can generate a matrix for the function and stability of magnetosomes. Therefore magnetosomes play major role as biogenic material with high bio and nano technological potential. Whole living cell of magnetotactic bacteria and magnetosomes can both apply in various areas of cancer therapy in many ways.
There are chemically prepared iron oxide in market. However they cannot compete or match with magnetosomes because of their inherent magnetic features, genetically controlled uniform nanomorphology, narrow sized distributions, having a high bio membrane envelope.
Chemotherapy is one of the effective therapies against active cancer cells. Here anti-cancer drugs are used in single or in combination. But as a side effect these drugs damage the healthy blood cells and hair cells as a result cancer patients experience hair loss in treatments. And these drugs should be below the toxic level and above the level of minimal therapeutic effect. Unluckily the human body does not have the ability to segregate these spatio-targeted profiles. Therefore drugs distribute throughout the body also can affect the healthy organs. In addition body has a special defense mechanism to excrete the foreign or strange materials that enters to body.
To meet these challenges, most of the researchers have investigated the drug delivery system with more biocompatible and biodegradable materials. This will lead to reduce in side effects. The concept used here is to locate drugs at the targeted site at the required concentration for the right period of time. Recently the magnetotactic bacteria and magnetosomes have proved to be smart drug carriers due to their unique features.
Magnetosomes contain amino groups and glycerol in their membrane surface which coupled with ligands. Accordingly they can act as productive drug carriers and with higher drug loading ratio that other artificial magnetic particles. Magnetoliposomes coupled with magnetosomes have been evaluated for drug targeting and controlled release at tumor sites.
The capture volume of the magnetoliposomes was 1.7 times higher than that of artificial magnetic particles. In addition magnetoliposomes release their content over two hours under a rotating magnetic field.
Radiotherapy is the application of the radiations like gamma rays, X rays, electron beam to weaken or stop the cancer cell from further growth and multiplication. Magnetosomes can also be coupled with radioactive isotopes. These offer better internal radiation of solid tumors because of their accurate targeted delivery.
As result of lack of international guidelines to measure the toxicity of nanomaterials, commercialization of magnetotactic bacteria products and process is lagging.
In addition to these, preparations must comply with the industrial and healthcare requirements If these lacunas are overcome magnetotactic bacteria and magnetosomes will play an important role in cancer therapy in near future due to their superior features.
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