Albumin Carriers for Cancer Theranostics: A Conventional Platform with New Promise

Theranostic nanoplatforms with integrated diagnostic and therapeutic functions, aiming at imaging-guided therapy to improve treatment planning, as well as combination therapy to enhance treatment efficacy, have received tremendous attention in recent years. Among numerous types of functional nanomaterials explored in this field, protein-based nanocarriers with inherent biocompatibility have also been selected as building blocks to construct multifunctional theranostic platforms. In particular, albumin, which has been extensively used as drug-delivery carriers for decades, has shown great new promise in the construction of novel imaging and therapeutic nanoagents, as demonstrated by a number of recent studies. IHere, the motivations of using albumins to build up nanoscale theranostics are discussed, and the latest progress/future perspectives in this direction are summarized.