pharmaceutics Review Adipocyte-Based Cell Therapy in Oncology: The Role of Cancer-Associated Adipocytes and Their Reinterpretation as Delivery Platforms 1, 1, 1 1 Raluca Munteanu y , Anca Onaciu y, Cristian Moldovan , Alina-Andreea Zimta , Diana Gulei 1 , Angelo V. Paradiso 2, Vladimir Lazar 3 and Ioana Berindan-Neagoe 1,4,5,* 1 Research Center for Advanced Medicine-Medfuture, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 23 Marinescu Street, 400337 Cluj-Napoca, Romania;
[email protected] (R.M.);
[email protected] (A.O.);
[email protected] (C.M.);
[email protected] (A.-A.Z.);
[email protected] (D.G.) 2 Oncologia Sperimentale, Istituto Tumori G Paolo II, IRCCS, 70125 Bari, Italy;
[email protected] 3 Worldwide Innovative Network for Personalized Cancer Therapy, 94800 Villejuif, France;
[email protected] 4 Research Center for Functional Genomics, Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 23 Marinescu Street, 400337 Cluj-Napoca, Romania 5 Department of Functional Genomics and Experimental Pathology, The Oncology Institute “Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuta”, 34-36 Republicii Street, 400015 Cluj-Napoca, Romania * Correspondence:
[email protected] These authors have contributed equally to the work. y Received: 2 April 2020; Accepted: 23 April 2020; Published: 28 April 2020 Abstract: Cancer-associated adipocytes have functional roles in tumor development through secreted adipocyte-derived factors and exosomes and also through metabolic symbiosis, where the malignant cells take up the lactate, fatty acids and glutamine produced by the neighboring adipocytes. Recent research has demonstrated the value of adipocytes as cell-based delivery platforms for drugs (or prodrugs), nucleic acids or loaded nanoparticles for cancer therapy.