Enhanced drug delivery can improve the therapeutic efficacy of drugs and help overcome side effects. However, many reported drug‐delivery systems are too complex and irreproducible for practical use. In this work, the design of a hypoxia‐responsive molecular container based on calixarene, called CAC4A, which presents a significant advance in practical, hypoxia‐targeted drug‐delivery, is reported. CAC4A enables a wide variety of clinical drugs to be quantitatively loaded to improve their solubility and stability, as well as enable the administration of reduced doses. Furthermore, as a result of its azo functional groups, which are sensitive to reduction within a hypoxic environment, it is possible to achieve tumor‐targeted drug‐release with reduced side effects. CAC4A fulfils all essential requirements for a drug‐delivery system in addition to multiple advantages, including facile preparation, well‐defined molecular weight, and structure, and universal applicability. Such features collectively enable supramolecular prodrugs to be formulated simply and reproducibly, with potential for bench‐to‐bedside translation. Moreover, CAC4A is amenable to other therapy modalities and can be facilely decorated with functional groups and hybridized with nanomaterials, providing ample possibilities for its role in future drug‐delivery systems.

Combination therapy based on molecular drugs and therapeutic genes provides an effective strategy for malignant tumor treatment. However, effective gene and drug combinations for cancer treatment are limited by the widespread antagonism between therapeutic genes and molecular drugs. Herein, a calixarene‐embedded nanoparticle (CENP) is developed to co‐deliver molecular drugs and therapeutic genes without compromising their biological functions, thereby achieving interference‐free gene–drug combination cancer therapy. CENP is composed of a cationic polyplex core and an acid‐responsive polymer shell, allowing CENP loading and delivering therapeutic genes with improved circulation stability and enhanced tumor accumulation. Moreover, the introduction of carboxylated azocalix[4]arene, which is a hypoxia‐responsive calixarene derivatives, in the polyplex core endows CENP with the capability to load molecular drugs through the host–guest complexation as well as inhibit the interference between the drugs and genes by encapsulating the drugs into its cavity. By loading doxorubicin and a plasmid DNA‐based CRISPR interference system that targets miR‐21, CENP exhibits the significantly enhanced anti‐tumor effects in mice. Considering the wide variety of calixarene derivatives, CENP can be adapted to deliver almost any combination of drugs and genes, providing the potential as a universal platform for the development of interference‐free gene–drug combination cancer therapy.

Photothermal agents (PTAs) based on organic small-molecule dyes emerge as promising theranostic strategy in imaging and photothermal therapy (PTT). However, hydrophobicity, photodegradation, and low signal-to-noise ratio impede their transformation from bench to bedside. In this study, a novel supramolecular PTT formulation by a stimuli-responsive macrocyclic host is prepared to overcome these obstacles of organic small-molecule PTAs. Methods: Sulfonated azocalix[4]arene (SAC4A) was synthesized as a hypoxia-responsive macrocyclic host. Taking IR780 as an example, the supramolecular nanoformulation IR780@SAC4A was constructed by grinding method, and its solubility, photostability, and photothermal conversion were evaluated. The hypoxia tumor-selective imaging and supramolecular PTT of IR780@SAC4A were further evaluated in vitro and in vivo . Results: IR780@SAC4A is capable of enhancing the solubility, photostability, and photothermal conversion of IR780 significantly, which achieve this supramolecular formulation with good imaging-guided PTT efficacy in vitro and in vivo . Conclusions: This study demonstrates that the supramolecular PTT strategy is a promising cancer theranostic method. Moreover, this supramolecular approach is applicative to construct kinds of supramolecular PTAs, opening a general avenue for extending smart PTT formulations.

A linear supramolecular ternary polymer was fabricated by iteratively threading cyclodextrin with suberyl dicholine and end-capping with bis-calixarenes, showing desired cholinesterase response.

Fullerene has attracted much attention in biomedical research due to its unique physical and chemical properties. However, the hydrophobic nature of fullerene is limited to deploy in the body, given that the biofluids are mainly water. In this study, a water-soluble supramolecular nanoformulation based on a deep cavitand calixarene (SAC4A) and fullerene is developed to overcome the hydrophobicity of fullerene and is used as a potential photodynamic agent. SAC4A solubilizes fullerene very well with a simple grinding method. The significantly increased water solubility of fullerene enables efficient activation of reactive oxygen species. The host–guest strategy to solubilize fullerene can not only provide a new method to achieve water solubility but also expand the biomedical applications of fullerene.