Photothermal
therapy is a new type of tumor therapy with great
potential. An ideal photothermal therapy agent should have high photothermal
conversion effect, low biological toxicity, and degradability. The
development of novel photothermal therapy agents with these properties
is of great demand. In this study, we synthesized boron quantum dots
(BQDs) with an ultrasmall hydrodynamic diameter. Both in vitro and in vivo studies show that the as-synthesized
BQDs have good biological safety, high photoacoustic imaging performance,
and photothermal conversion ability, which can be used for photoacoustic
imaging-guided photothermal agents for tumor treatment. Our investigations
confirm that the BQDs hold great promise in tumor theranostic applications.
ACEs were engineered much like “Emperor Qin's Terra-Cotta Warriors”, simultaneously equipped with armor (anti-phagocytosis capability from RBCs) and dagger-axes (homologous targeting ability from cancer cells).
Gene therapy with small interfering RNA (siRNA) has been proved to be a promising technology to treat various diseases by hampering the production of target proteins. However, developing a delivery system that has high efficiency in transporting siRNA without obvious side effects remains a challenge. Herein, we designed a new survivin siRNA delivery system based on polyethyleneimine functionalized black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets which could suppress tumor growth by silencing survivin expression. Combined with the photothermal properties of the BP nanosheets, the presented delivery system shows excellent therapy efficiency for tumors. Therefore, the BP-based delivery system would be a promising tool for future clinical applications.
Stimuli-responsive polymers have received increasing interest for a variety of applications. Here, we report a series of unique charge-determined thermoresponsive polypeptoids synthesized by a combination of ring-opening polymerization and click chemistry. The LCST-type and UCST-type behavior is mainly dominated by the charge state on the side chain. Further, the phase transition temperature highly depends on the degree of polymerization, the side-chain architecture, the pH value, and so on. The obtained polypeptoid solutions exhibit good stability against temperature and salt concentration. To our knowledge, this report presents the first charge-determined LCST/UCST-type polymer from identical homopolymer backbone that displays a wide range of tunable cloudy points in aqueous media. We propose the hydrogen-bonding interaction plays a critical part on the solution behavior. These features make polypeptoids ideal candidates for highly designable stimuli-responsive polymeric materials.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.