Macrophage membrane-functionalized nanotherapeutics for tumor targeted therapy

Cancer is a multifaceted disease characterized by uncontrollable cell growth. To date, various therapies are employed including conventional chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy, and immunotherapies. However, these approaches still present significant limitations. Interestingly, macrophage membranes utilize their innate antigen recognition affinity to facilitate targeted localization to tumor sites with high specificity. As a result, they display distinct characteristics such as avoiding premature leakage, tumor targeting ability, immune evasion, immune system activation, tumor-infiltrating ability, improved cell endocytosis and release payload in tumor-microenvironment. In this paper, the recent advances in macrophage-membrane-encapsulated nanotherapeutics for targeted cancer therapy are presented. We begin by introducing macrophage membrane-encapsulated nanotherapeutics preparation and characterization, followed by cancer immunotherapy such as macrophage polarization, T-cell infiltration, macrophage membrane modification, immunization, and inducing immunological cell death. Lastly, a future perspective is proposed to highlight the limitations of macrophage membrane-encapsulated nanotherapeutics and the possible resolutions toward the clinical transformation of currently developed biomimetic chemotherapies. We believe this review may be beneficial for improving the deep research of macrophage membrane-encapsulated nanotherapeutics for targeted cancer therapy.