Biomimetic Nanoparticles for Metastatic Breast Cancer: Advancing Targeted Drug Delivery Beyond Conventional Nanomedicine.

Abstract

Breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although nanomedicines are a promising and rapidly evolving therapeutic platform, their clinical translation remains limited. Depending on the stage and subtype of the disease, systemic treatments and localized strategies are still essential for treating metastatic breast cancer. Metastatic forms are still mostly incurable, even with improvements in early-stage interventions. Low tumor specificity, high systemic toxicity, decreased chemical stability, and multidrug resistance are some of the drawbacks of traditional treatments. Biomimetic nanoparticles (BMNPs) are synthetic cores cloaked with native cell membranes or biomolecules to recapitulate biological surface functionality for improved targeting and immune evasion. They have synthetic structures and artificial antigen-presenting cells in addition to coatings made of biologically derived materials. In preclinical studies, BMNPs often show enhanced tumor accumulation, prolonged circulation, and reduced systemic toxicity compared with uncoated nanoparticles, although reporting heterogeneity limits direct comparisons. By circumventing complex bottom-up synthetic approaches that attempt to replicate biological complexity, biomimetic nanoparticles preserve native biological functions using naturally derived cell membranes.