Nanotechnology Meets Stem Cell Therapy for Treating Glioblastomas: A Review

Malignant glioblastoma, also known as Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is one of the most aggressive subtypes, characterized by wide vascularization and complex invasion. The currently available standard care for GBM includes maximal surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. These standard therapeutic procedures are facilitating the treatment by means of prolonging the lifetime. However, these processes cannot prevent tumor recurrence in the future and thereby compromise the patient lifetime. This disease recurrence is accredited to the presence of glioma stem cells (GSCs) that are resistant toward chemo and radiation therapies. GSCs are mainly associated with vascular niches that control GSC self-renewal and survival. Therefore, targeting of GSCs using various nanoparticle-assisted therapeutics may improve the efficacy of the drugs used alone or in combination that may result in progress in patient survival. Nanoparticles have been designed with an aim to selectively deliver the cargo to the target cells and therefore are of considerable interest for use in cancer stem cell (CSC) directed anticancer therapies. The structure and properties of nanomaterials influencing the propagation and differentiation of stem cells have been extensively studied and have become a cutting-edge research domain in material science and regenerative medicines. However, due to tumor microenvironment heterogeneity and interpatient variability, these nanoparticles have yielded few clinical outcomes. Despite the formidable challenges, stem cell nanotechnology presents opportunities that can significantly enhance our grasp of stem cell fate and enable the development of groundbreaking stem cell therapies. In doing so, nanoparticle-based stem cell therapy has risen as a promising therapeutic armamentarium to make substantial contributions to the effective treatment of glioblastoma.