Biomembrane-coated nanosystems as next-generation delivery systems for the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers

Gastrointestinal cancers, a major global cause of cancer-related mortality and disease burden, are a heterogeneous group of malignant aliments involving different organs of the digestive system. The late clinical diagnosis, genomic tumor heterogeneity, high complexity of the gastrointestinal tumor microenvironment, along with increasing treatment resistance have been recognized as the main contributing factors to the current inadequacy of the clinical interventions and poor prognosis of the gastrointestinal cancer patients. In the coming years, gastrointestinal cancer-related global mortality is unfortunately predicted to increase due to the absence of early detection and effective therapeutic options. Biomembrane-coated biomimetic nanoparticles (NPs) have recently been appointed as advanced nanotechnological tools for the clinical management of gastrointestinal cancers. These comprise not only cell-mimicking nanodevices (the pioneers of this top-down coating technology), but also exosome and bacterial mimetics. Due to their enhanced bio-interfacing features, biocompatibility, immune evasion, and specific targetability to tumorous tissues, these biomimetic nanostructures have been successfully exploited to provide safer, effective, and targeted gastrointestinal cancer applications. This review highlights the latest research on biomembrane-coated nanosystems for the clinical therapy and diagnosis of the most common and deadliest subtypes of gastrointestinal cancers, namely colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer. The current challenges toward their clinical translation are also mentioned.