Tannic acid (TA), a large polyphenolic molecule, has long been known for using in food additive, antioxidants, bio-sorbents, animal feeding and adhesive making due to its intrinsic properties such as...

No abstract

As a noninvasive therapeutic technique, photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted numerous research interests for cancer therapy. Nevertheless, the residual photosensitizers (PSs) still produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and damage normal cells under sunlight after PDT, which limits their practical application in clinic. Herein, the authors propose a self-degradable type-I PS based on conjugated polymer, which is composed of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and imidazole units. Due to the effective conjugated skeleton and unique AIE properties, thus-obtained polymers can effectively generate superoxide radical (O 2 −• ) through the type-I process under light irradiation, which is ideal for hypoxic tumors treatment. Intriguingly, under light irradiation, O 2 −• produced by the conjugated polymers can further lead to the self-degradation of the polymer to form nontoxic micro-molecules. It not only helps to resolve the potential phototoxicity problems of residual PSs, but also can accelerate the metabolism of the conjugated polymers to avoid the potential biotoxicity of drug accumulation. This work develops a self-degradable type-I PS, which can turn off the generation of ROS in time after PDT, providing a novel strategy to balance the PDT effect and postoperative safety.

Nanotheranostics for biomedical imaging-guided cancer therapy have attracted increasing interest due to their capabilities of both precise tumor diagnosis and high therapeutic efficacy. Among the diverse imaging models, fluorescence imaging have been extensively researched for their high sensitivity, simple operation, and low cost. In this work, aggregation induced emission (AIE) fluorogens based targeted nanotheranostics are facilely fabricated via paclitaxel (PTX) induced assembly of proteins for the first time. Thanks to the unique fluorescence property of AIE fluorogens PhENH , the prepared theranostic nanoplatforms can emit bright fluorescence even after being incorporated with the photothermal therapy agent polypyrrole (PPy), which will often decrease or quench the emission of common fluorescence dyes. The target moiety of cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (cRGD) endows the nanotheranostics with outstanding targeting ability, which can further facilitate the targeted imaging and cancer treatment. As revealed by the in vitro and in vivo experiments, the prepared nanotheranostics human serum albumin-PhENH -PPy-PTX-cRGD shows impressive performance in the targeted fluorescence imaging even after intravenous injection for 48 h, and their combined chemo-photothermal therapy is also very effective. These results indicate that AIE fluorogens based nanotheranostics would find a promising prospect in further improved multimodal imaging and imaging guided cancer treatment.

No abstract

No abstract

With tremendous research advances in biomedical application, liquid metals (LM) also offer fantastic chemistry for synthesis of novel nano-composites. Herein, as a pioneering trial, litchi-shaped heterogeneous eutectic gallium indium-Au nanoparticles (EGaIn-Au NPs), served as effective radiosensitizer and photothermal agent for radio-photothermal cancer therapy, have been successfully prepared using in situ interfacial galvanic replacement reaction. The enhanced photothermal conversion efficiency and boosted radio-sensitization effect could be achieved with the reduction of Au nanodots onto the eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn) NPs surface. Most importantly, the growth of tumor could be effectively inhibited under the combined radio-photothermal therapy mediated by EGaIn-Au NPs. Inspired by this approach, in situ interfacial galvanic replacement reaction may open a novel strategy to fabricate LM-based nano-composite with advanced multi-functionalities.

No abstract