The application of nanoparticles in theranostic systems targeting breast cancer stem cells: current progress and future challenges

Breast cancer (BC) is one of the diseases with the highest female mortality rates in the world and is closely related to breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs). Conventional breast cancer chemotherapy drugs target noncancer stem cells (non-CSCs), while cancer stem cells (CSCs) can still survive, which is an important reason for breast cancer drug resistance and local recurrence or distant metastasis. How to eradicate BCSCs while killing BCs is the key factor to improve the effect, and it is also an important scientific problem to be solved urgently. Therefore, targeted BCSC therapy has become a research hotspot. Interestingly, the emergence of nanotechnology provides a new idea for targeting BCSCs. This study summarizes the current application status of nanomaterials in targeting BCSCs, and attempts to construct a new type of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) that can target BCSCs through mRNA, providing a new idea for the treatment of BC.