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Updated: Dec 15, 2025
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Published on: July 24, 2019
Engineering extracellular matrix to improve drug delivery for cancer therapy
Xiaocong He1, Yuanyuan Yang1, Lingxiao Li1
1Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, PR China; Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, PR China.
Abstract:
As an effective platform to deliver therapeutic drugs into tumors, nanoparticles (NPs) have shown great potential for cancer therapy. However, the tumor microenvironment (TME) contains diverse barriers to the transport of NPs, particularly the dense extracellular matrix (ECM). Thus, engineering the tumor ECM is a promising way to improve drug delivery by degrading existing ECM and/or blocking ECM synthesis. In this review, we present the state-of-the-art advances in engineering the tumor ECM to improve the therapeutic efficacy of NPs, and highlight their advantages and limitations.
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