Amino acid polymer-based nano-carriers for targeted drug delivery in breast cancer therapy: Mechanisms, applications, and future perspectives: A literature review

Abstract

Breast cancer remains a leading cause of women's mortality worldwide, despite considerable development in diagnosis and treatment strategies. Issues associated with conventional treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, including systemic toxicity, side effects, and limited efficacy at advanced stages, have remained prominent challenges. Present advances in nanomedicine have shown that amino acid polymer-based nano-carriers are promising vehicles for targeted drug delivery in the treatment of breast cancer. These nano-carriers enhance biocompatibility, control and sustain drug release, exhibit better physicochemical stability, and show high selectivity for tumor tissues, thereby alleviating side effects in healthy tissues. This narrative review summarizes recent advancements in amino acid polymer-based nano-carriers, focusing on their design, drug-loading techniques, tumor microenvironment response, and ligand-mediated targeting methods. Also, it underscores current limitations, translation challenges, and research gaps, which need to be addressed to facilitate the successful implementation of clinical practices. Overall, these nano-carriers may improve breast cancer treatment by enhancing therapeutic precision and patient outcomes and contributing to the next generation of personalized nanomedicine.