Delivery of nanoparticles to brain metastases of breast cancer using a cellular Trojan horse

Abstract

As systemic cancer therapies improve and are able to control metastatic disease outside the central nervous system, the brain is increasingly the first site of relapse. The blood–brain barrier (BBB) represents a major challenge to the delivery of therapeutics to the brain. Macrophages originating from circulating monocytes are able to infiltrate brain metastases while the BBB is intact. Here, we show that this ability can be exploited to deliver both diagnostic and therapeutic nanoparticles specifically to experimental brain metastases of breast cancer.