Objectives This review highlights both the physicochemical characteristics of the nanocarriers (NCs) and the physiological features of tumour microenvironment (TME) to outline what strategies undertaken to deliver the molecules of interest specifically to certain lesions. This review discusses these properties describing the convenient choice between passive and active targeting mechanisms with details, illustrated with examples of targeting agents up to preclinical research or clinical advances. Key findings Targeted delivery approaches for anticancers have shown a steep rise over the past few decades. Though many successful preclinical trials, only few passive targeted nanocarriers are approved for clinical use and none of the active targeted nanoparticles. Herein, we review the principles and for both processes and the correlation with the tumour microenvironment. We also focus on the limitation and advantages of each systems regarding laboratory and industrial scale. Summary The current literature discusses how the NCs and the enhanced permeation and retention effect impact the passive targeting. Whereas the active targeting relies on the ligand‐receptor binding, which improves selective accumulation to targeted sites and thus discriminates between the diseased and healthy tissues. The latter could be achieved by targeting the endothelial cells, tumour cells, the acidic environment of cancers and nucleus.

Environmental remediation relies mainly on using various technologies (e.g., adsorption, absorption, chemical reactions, photocatalysis, and filtration) for the removal of contaminants from different environmental media (e.g., soil, water, and air). The enhanced properties and effectiveness of nanotechnology-based materials makes them particularly suitable for such processes given that they have a high surface area-to-volume ratio, which often results in higher reactivity. This review provides an overview of three main categories of nanomaterials (inorganic, carbon-based, and polymeric-based materials) used for environmental remediation. The use of these nanomaterials for the remediation of different environmental contaminants—such as heavy metals, dyes, chlorinated organic compounds, organophosphorus compounds, volatile organic compounds, and halogenated herbicides—is reviewed. Various recent examples are extensively highlighted focusing on the materials and their applications.

Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ubiquitous in many consumer products and present serious environmental challenges due to their persistent nature. Currently, conventional water treatment methods fail to remove PFAS, and other newly proposed materials/techniques face challenges when employed under realistic conditions. This study reports on poly(ethylenimine)-functionalized cellulose microcrystals (PEI-f-CMC) that showed a near-instant and high removal of PFAS under concentrations relevant to their actual occurrence in the natural environment (i.e., <1000 ng/L). The selective removal efficiency of 22 PFAS from different classes (i.e., legacy carboxylic and sulfonated PFAS, emerging carboxylic and sulfonated PFAS, and PFAS-precursors) using PEI-f-CMC was confirmed in lake water as well as solutions codosed with two additional types of natural organic matter. The performance of PEI-f-CMC was maintained in eight consecutive adsorption/regeneration cycles to remove PFAS. The PEI-f-CMC with its unique fast kinetics and high adsorption activity toward PFAS exhibits a great potential for being a promising alternative adsorbent for PFAS control.

In this study, we investigated the role of the chemical nature of the oil droplet core of nano-emulsions used as contrast agents for X-ray imaging on their pharmacokinetics and biodistribution. To this end, we formulated PEGylated nano-emulsions with two iodinated oils (i.e., iodinated monoglyceride and iodinated castor oil) and compared them with another iodinated nano-emulsion based on iodinated vitamin E. By using dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy, the three iodinated nano-emulsions were found to exhibit comparable morphologies, size, and surface composition. Furthermore, they were shown to be endowed with very high iodine concentration, which leads to stronger X-ray attenuation properties as compared to the commercial iodinated nano-emulsion Fenestra VC. The three nano-emulsions were i.v. administered in mice and monitored by microcomputed tomography (micro-CT). They showed high contrast enhancement in blood with similar half-life around 6 h but very different accumulation sites. While iodinated monoglycerides exhibited low accumulation in liver and spleen, high accumulation in spleen was observed for iodinated castor oil and in liver for vitamin E. These data clearly highlighted the important role of the oil composition of the nano-emulsion core to obtain strong X-ray contrast enhancement in specific targets such as liver, spleen, or only blood. These differences in biodistribution were partly attributed to differences in the uptake of the nanodroplets by the macrophages in vitro. Another key feature of these nano-emulsions is their long half-elimination time (several weeks), which offers sufficient retention for micro-CT imaging. This work paves the way for the design of nanoparticulate contrast agents for X-ray imaging of selected organs.

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Efficiency of drug administration is related to the inhibition of adverse effects, and can be improved by drug targeting through lipid nanocarriers encapsulation. Targeting technology generally goes along with the nanocarrier functionalization that can be surface modification and/or ligand grafting. The great advantage of nanoemulsions is their loading capability and the possibilities to encapsulate several entities in a single droplet, however, the decoration of the lipid droplets with strongly anchored reactive functions is challenging. This study proposes a reliable and innovative method to functionalize lipid droplets, based on the lipophilic polymer poly(maleic anhydride-alt-1-octadecene), solubilized in the droplet core, and able to hydrolyze at the oil/water interface. Interfacial chemistry and physicochemical properties of nanodroplets are characterized. In vitro studies reveal that the presence of carboxylates at interface has a strong impact on the interactions with cells, as the internalization of functionalized droplets is much higher than control ones. This difference is confirmed with longitudinal computed tomography studies in mice after i.v. administration, strongly impacting the pharmacokinetics and biodistributions. This work establishes the proof-of-concept of a new method for functionalizing lipid droplets and demonstrates that surface modification can have a significant impact on their interaction with cells, pharmacokinetics, and biodistribution.

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