Protein kinases constitute a rich pool of biomarkers and therapeutic targets of tremendous diseases including cancer. However, sensing kinase activity in vivo while implementing treatments according to kinase hyperactivation remains challenging. Herein, we present a nanomediator–effector cascade system that can in situ magnify the subtle events of kinase‐catalyzed phosphorylation via DNA amplification machinery to achieve kinase activity imaging and kinase‐responsive drug release in vivo. In this cascade, the phosphorylation‐mediated disassembly of DNA/peptide complex on the nanomediators initiated the detachment of fluorescent hairpin DNAs from the nanoeffectors via hybridization chain reaction (HCR), leading to fluorescence recovery and therapeutic cargo release. We demonstrated that this nanosystem simultaneously enabled trace protein kinase A (PKA) activity imaging and on‐demand drug delivery for inhibition of tumor cell growth both in vitro and in vivo, affording a kinase‐specific sense‐and‐treat paradigm for cancer theranostics.
Fluorescent silicon nanodots have shown great prospects for bioimaging and biosensing applications. Although various fluorescent silicon-containing nanodots (SiNDs) have been developed, there are few reports about renal-clearable multicolor SiNDs. Herein, renal-clearable multicolor fluorescent SiNDs are synthesized by using silane molecules and organic dyes through a facile one-step hydrothermal method. The fluorescence of the resulting SiNDs can be tuned to blue (bSiNDs), green (gSiNDs), and red (rSiNDs) by simply changing the categories of silane reagents or dye molecules. The as-prepared SiNDs exhibit strong fluorescence with a quantum yield up to 72%, excellent photostability, and good biocompatibility with 12 h renal clearance rate as high as 86% ID. These properties enabled the SiNDs for tumor fluorescence imaging and H 2 O 2 imaging in living cells and tissue through in situ reduction reactionlighted fluorescence of the nanoprobe. Our results provide an invaluable methodology for the synthesis of renal-clearable multicolor SiNDs and their potential applications for fluorescence imaging and biomarker sensing. These SiNDs are also promising for various biological and biomedical applications.
Dynamically monitoring of intracellular glutathione (GSH), a crucial biomarker of oxidative stress, is of significance for diagnostic and treatment of the certain diseases. Although manganese dioxide (MnO2) based GSH fluorescent...
In this paper, temperature and pH-sensitive interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) nanogels (NGs) were firstly prepared, and magnetic hybrid NGs were made through in-situ precipitation of Fe 2+ and Fe 3+ into the IPN NGs. Under the optimized condition, the resulting hybrid NG dispersion with up to 17.3 wt% magnetite was stable, while the size distribution of the NGs is broad due to the formation of Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles outside the NGs. In order to synthesize relatively uniform magnetic NGs, magnetite content was reduced to 8.1 wt% magnetite. The NGs with 8.1 wt% magnetite can quickly self-assemble into colloidal crystals induced by magnet, while such NGs slowly self-assembled into colloidal crystals without external magnetic field. Furthermore, the reflection wavelength of the self-assembled magnetic NGs showed red-shift with increasing pH and temperature.
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