Quercetin-loaded nanomedicine as oncotherapy

Phytochemicals as nutritional components have been explored for their anticancer properties. Quercetin (QT), being a chief component of different dietary products, has been widely explored for its anticancer and anti-proliferative activities on numerous cancer cell lines. Also, it is an exceptional antioxidant which plays crucial role against various human cancers. QT shows significant pro-apoptotic activity against tumor cells and thus can impede the development of various cancers in humans. Moreover, the anticancer activities of QT have been recognized in various in vitro and in vivo studies on numerous cancer cell lines and animal models. Furthermore, the toxicity of QT against cancer cells is complemented with slight or no adverse effects to normal cells. Again QT molecules have been reported with major issues including low oral bioavailability and poor aqueous solubility which makes it to be an unideal moiety for therapeutic applications. Also, the frequent gastrointestinal digestion of QT seems to be a key barrier for its clinical translations. Henceforth, to overcome these drawbacks, QT-based nanoformulations (NFs) are developed which have shown favourable results in its upregulation by the epithelial system which also improved its targeted delivery at site. Herein, in this review, we have tried to focus on various promising roles of QT-based nanoformulations alone or modified with targeted nanocarriers as an ideal agent for oncotherapy.