CHCl 3 solution; b) Calculated from the film UV-vis-NIR absorption onset; c) Measured from the CV; d) Calculated by the equation: E LUMO = E HOMO + E g .

Accumulation of nanoparticles in solid tumors depends on their extravasation, but their efficacy is often compromised by intrinsic physiological heterogeneity in tumors. The conventional solutions to circumvent this problem are size control of nanoparticles or increasing the vascular permeability. The aim of this study is to investigate the combination effect of size variation of stimuli-responsive nanoparticles and improved vascular permeability triggered by near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation. Doxorubicin (DOX), a clinically proven drug for bladder cancer, was encapsulated in the nanocomposites with high loading content up to 45%. We show that NIR light-responsive size-switchable nanocarriers could considerably enhance the tumor-targeting of DOX in bladder tumor-bearing mice. Moreover, a combination of NIR-induced hyperthermia and DOX-mediated chemotherapy resulted in remarkable inhibition of tumor growth in mice. Histological results suggest that the change in morphology of tumor microvasculature may account for enhanced extravasation and accumulation of the nanodrugs upon NIR irradiation. Together, these data suggest that external stimuli-responsive drug delivery system offers a safe and effective means of targeted chemo/photothermal therapy.

Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles (SP NPs) are employed as efficient nanoagents for "all-in-one" theranostic nanoplatforms with dual photoacoustic imaging (PAI) and photothermal therapy (PTT) functions based on their photothermal conversion effect. However, the mechanisms of tuning the PTT efficiency are still elusive, though several SP NPs with high photothermal efficiency are reported. Herein, two donor-acceptor (D-A) SP NPs PTIGSVS and PIIGSVS with the same donor unit but different acceptor units are designed and synthesized. Through tuning the acceptor unit, PTIGSVS shows more planar backbone structure, stronger D-A strength, redshifted absorption, enhanced extinction efficient, weakened emission properties, and more efficient nonradiative decay in comparison to the polymeric analogue PIIGSVS. Thus, PTIGSVS NPs present much higher photothermal conversion efficiencies (74%) than PIIGSVS NPs (11%), resulting in significantly enhanced in vitro and in vivo PAI and PTT performance. This contribution demonstrates that PTIGSVS NPs are superior PA/PTT agents for effective cancer theranostic and shed light on understanding the relationship between molecular structures and photothermal effect of CPs.

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Figure 8. a) PA signals intensity and b) PA images of BTA NPs with different concentrations (from 13.55 to 162.98 µg mL −1 ). 8 of 8) www.advancedsciencenews.com (

Cancer possesses normoxic and hypoxia microenvironments with different levels of oxygen, needing different efficacies of photothermal and photodynamic therapies. It is important to precisely tune the photothermal and photodynamic effects of phototherapy nano‐agents for efficient cancer treatment. Now, a series of copolymeric nanoparticles (PPy‐Te NPs) were synthesized in situ by controlled oxidative copolymerization with different ratios of pyrrole to tellurophene by FeCl3. The photothermal and photodynamic effects of semiconducting nano‐agents under the first near‐infrared (NIR) irradiation were precisely and systematically tuned upon simply varying the molar ratio of the pyrrole to tellurophene. The PPy‐Te NPs were used for cancer treatment in mice, exhibiting excellent biocompatibility and therapeutic effect. This work presents a simple method to tune photothermal and photodynamic therapies effect in semiconducting nano‐agents for cancer treatment.

Defect‐free alternating conjugated polymers were produced by exploring palladium‐catalyzed Stille polymerization at room temperature. The selected copolymers demonstrated no homocoupling defects and superior charge transport properties, thus paving the road for the development of plastic electronics. Details of this study are reported by Qinqin Shi, Hui Huang, and co‐workers in their Research Article (e202115969).

Nanocarriers are widely used for delivering drugs to tumors and are progressing in a stable trend, because malignant tumors remain a major health burden throughout the world and effective therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. Furthermore, as an integrated platform, nanocarriers have the potential to dramatically improve cancer diagnosis, imaging, and therapy, while reducing the toxicity associated with the current approaches. Significantly, intelligent nanocarriers are the new generation of the nanocarriers, exhibiting superior tumor targeting and improved therapeutic efficacy. In this review, we discuss recent development in the design of nanoscale stimuli-responsive systems which will be able to control drug biodistribution in response to specific stimuli, either exogenous or endogenous. Meanwhile, the recent progress in engineering intelligent and versatile nanomaterials for targeting the tumor microenvironment is summarized.