Engineering cells or cellular outer membranes as multifaceted vehicles for reinforcing nanomedicine-based pulmonary disease treatment

Pulmonary diseases are seriously threatening the health of human body, placing a significant financial burden on society. The development of nanotechnology has attracted increasing attention in recent pulmonary disease treatment owing to its distinctive advantages in conquering the limitations of conventional pharmacotherapeutic treatments. However, the inherent “foreign” and difficulties in adding biointerfacing capabilities to nanoparticles (NPs) in the complicated biological environment via synthetic techniques may hinder its further clinical applications. Mammalian cells that possess unique functions in complex and dynamic bioenvironments are encouraging the rational design of cell-nano integrated systems by leveraging the innate biointerfacing properties of cells and the distinct characterizations of NPs. Here, a comprehensive review is presented to introduce a promising bio-nano-cooperated platform for targeted pulmonary disease treatment. The multifaceted vehicles from different source cells and the application-specific design of corresponding bio-nano-cooperated platforms against various pulmonary diseases are introduced. By directly hitchhiking the entire cells or their outer membranes, the NPs can be endowed with enhanced biointerfacing and biointeracting abilities, befriending physiological barriers and achieving targeted drug delivery to specifically execute therapeutic performance with minimized side effects in vivo. Moreover, these vehicles also exhibit multifaceted therapeutic potential, which synergistically improve the therapeutic efficiency in pulmonary disease treatment. Despite its attractive applications, various challenges in the scope of future perspectives need to be addressed.