Proteases are hydrolytic enzymes fundamental for a variety of physiological processes, but the loss of their regulation leads to aberrant functions that promote onset and progression of many diseases including cancer. Proteases have been implicated in almost every hallmark of cancer and whilst widely investigated for tumour therapy, clinical adoption of protease inhibitors as drugs remains a challenge due to issues such as off-target toxicity and inability to achieve therapeutic doses at the disease site. Now, nanotechnology-based solutions and strategies are emerging to circumvent these issues. In this review, preclinical advances in approaches to enhance the delivery of protease drugs and the exploitation of tumour-derived protease activities to promote targeting of nanomedicine formulations is examined. Whilst this field is still in its infancy, innovations to date suggest that nanomedicine approaches to protease targeting or inhibition may hold much therapeutic and diagnostic potential.

中文翻译：

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纳米技术在靶向和开发肿瘤相关蛋白酶方面的应用。

蛋白酶是多种生理过程必不可少的水解酶，但失去调节作用会导致异常功能，从而促进包括癌症在内的许多疾病的发作和发展。蛋白酶几乎涉及癌症的每一个特征，尽管广泛用于肿瘤治疗，但蛋白酶抑制剂作为药物的临床应用仍然面临挑战，原因是脱靶毒性和无法在疾病部位达到治疗剂量。现在，正在出现基于纳米技术的解决方案和策略来规避这些问题。在这篇综述中，研究了增强蛋白酶药物递送和利用肿瘤衍生的蛋白酶活性促进纳米药物制剂靶向的方法的临床前进展。虽然这个领域还处于起步阶段，