Two-dimensional metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes): preparation, property, and applications in cancer therapy

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes), which comprise a rapidly growing family of two-dimensional materials, have attracted extensive attention of the scientific community, owing to its unique characteristics of high specific surface area, remarkable biocompatibility, and versatile applications. Exploring different methods to tune the size and morphology of MXenes plays a critical role in their practical applications. In recent years, MXenes have been demonstrated as promising nanomaterials for cancer therapy with substantial performances, which not only are helpful to clarify the mechanism between properties and morphologies but also bridge the gap between MXene nanotechnology and forward-looking applications. In this review, recent progress on the preparation and properties of MXenes are summarized. Further applications in cancer therapy are also discussed. Finally, the current opportunities and future perspective of MXenes are described.</jats:p>

An Overview of Recent Advances in the Synthesis and Applications of the Transition Metal Carbide Nanomaterials

“…MXenes have hydrophilic surfaces, a number of active sites for drug incorporation, good biocompatibility, strong light absorption in the near-infrared region (NIR), and ferromagnetism suitable for MRI imaging. The unique architecture and characteristics make it a suitable tool for (i) cancer therapeutics, e.g., photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, and chemo and radio therapy; (ii) cancer diagnostics, e.g., sensing electrode material, as a contrast agent in MRI, CT bioimaging, and photo-acoustic imaging; and (iii) cancer theranostics as a cargo agent for anticancer drug delivery and as a contrast agent for real-time imaging [ 36 , 131 ].…”

Ferrite Nanoparticles-Based Reactive Oxygen Species-Mediated Cancer Therapy

“…Increasing generation, regulating the types of reactive oxygen species, and inhibiting cellular glutathione peroxidase can break the balance between the production and elimination of ROS in tumor cell and tune the function of intracellular ROS from tumor promoting toward apoptotic signaling, inducing the apoptosis and death of tumor cell for cancer therapeutics (Liou and Storz, 2010 ). In order to enhance the effect of ROS-mediated tumor-specific therapeutic, various drugs and nanomaterials such as doxorubicin, cisplatin, Fe 3 O 4 , gold, silver, polyoxomolybdate (POM), and molybdenum carbide have been studied for targeted delivery to tumor tissues and endocytosis by tumor cells to selectively increase the production of highly toxic ROS in tumor cells (Yanagie et al, 2006 ; He et al, 2012 , 2016b ; Maji et al, 2015 ; Kankala et al, 2017 ; Feng et al, 2019 ; Liu et al, 2019a ; Dong et al, 2020 ; Maiti et al, 2020 ). Among these nanomaterials, ferrite nanoparticles are widely studied due to unique magnetic properties and relatively high safety to human body, especially iron oxide nanoparticles, which have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for clinical applications, such as iron supplement, magnetic resonance contrast agent, and drug carrier (Liu et al, 2019c ).…”

Recent Progress on NIR-II Photothermal Therapy

“… Xu et al (2020a) summarized the preparation methods, photothermal conversion mechanisms and related applications of several 2D materials. Dong et al (2020) described the latest developments of MXenes materials in terms of structure and properties, and summarized the unique advantages of MXenes in PTT. Wang et al summarized the main applications of 2D nanocomposites in biomedicine due to their excellent photothermal properties ( Wang and Cheng, 2019 ).…”