Nanomedicine-Enabled/Augmented Cell Autophagy to Mitigate and Boycott the Development and Progression of Atherosclerotic Plaque

Atherosclerosis (AS) is a chronic, inflammatory and systemic disease that seriously threatens human health and is the main factor leading to the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases. Autophagy has been regarded as an effective therapeutic strategy for AS, which can represent an important self-protecting intracellular system that can delivery and capture destroyed organelles and unnecessary proteins to lysosome for degradation. Thanks to the fast progress of nanotechnology, nanomedicine is widely used to enable, potentiate, and augment autophagy for promoting the AS-therapeutic efficacy and specificity. This review focuses on discussing the latest advances in this emerging field, with a particular emphasis on the nanomedicine-enabled/augmented autophagy approach for supporting the construction of next-generation nanomedicines to effectively trigger autophagy in the treatment of AS. Particularly, the biocompatibility and biosafety of engineering nanomedicine, the current challenges and futural prospects are also summarized in this comprehensive review, aiming to accelerate future clinical translation of this burgeoning field. It is highly anticipated that future clinical transformation of nanomedicine can be achieved by inducing autophagic activation based on bioactive nanomaterials.