Perfluoropentane-encapsulated hollow mesoporous prussian blue nanocubes for activated ultrasound imaging and photothermal therapy of cancer

Recent advances in different modal imaging-guided photothermal therapy

Photothermal therapy (PTT) has recently attracted considerable attention owing to its controllable treatment process, high tumour eradication efficiency and minimal side effects on non-cancer cells. PTT can melt cancerous cells by localising tissue hyperthermia induced by internalised therapeutic agents with a high photothermal conversion efficiency under external laser irradiation. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have shown the significant potential of PTT to treat tumours in future practical applications. Unfortunately, the lack of visualisation towards agent delivery and internalisation, as well as imaging-guided comprehensive evaluation of therapeutic outcome, limits its further application. Developments in combined photothermal therapeutic nanoplatforms guided by different imaging modalities have compensated for the major drawback of PTT alone, proving PTT to be a promising technique in biomedical applications. In this review, we introduce recent developments in different imaging modalities including single-modal, dual-modal, triple-modal and even multi-modal imaging-guided PTT, together with imaging-guided multi-functional theranostic nanoplatforms.

Targeted Near-Infrared Fluorescent Turn-on Nanoprobe for Activatable Imaging and Effective Phototherapy of Cancer Cells

A novel and green multifunctional nanoplatform as a nanocarrier for drug delivery, cell imaging, and phototherapy has been engineered. The nanoplatform is composed of stabilized carbon spheres (CSs) as cores, a coated polydopamine (PDA) shell, targeted folic acid (FA), and the loaded anticancer drug indocyanine green (ICG), obtaining CSs@PDA-FA@ICG nanocomposites (NCs). The biocompatible PDA shell provided a high fluorescence quenching efficiency and a surface rich in functional groups for anchoring FA for targeting cancer cells. Aromatic ICG could be effectively loaded into the CSs@PDA-FA system via hydrophobic interactions and π-π stacking with a loading efficiency of 58.9%. Notably, the activated NIR fluorescence in an intracellular environment made CSs@PDA-FA@ICG a sensitive "OFF" to "ON" nanoprobe that can be used for NIR imaging. Moreover, compared to ICG alone, the CSs@PDA-FA@ICG NCs could induce efficient photoconversion for simultaneous synergetic photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) under a single NIR laser irradiation. The results demonstrated that CSs@PDA-FA@ICG NCs as a targeted and activated nanoplatform provide new opportunities to facilitate the accurate diagnosis of cancer and enhanced treatment efficacy. This work stimulates more interest in the design of the facile surface functionalization strategy to construct other multifunctional nanocomposites, such as nanotubes and nanorods.

Prussian blue type nanoparticles for biomedical applications

Prussian blue type nanoparticles are exciting nano-objects that combine the advantages of molecule-based materials and nanochemistry. Here we provide a short overview focalizing on the recent advances of these nano-objects designed for biomedical applications and give an outlook on the future research orientations in this domain.

Stable Encapsulation of Air in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles: Fluorocarbon-Free Nanoscale Ultrasound Contrast Agents

While gas-filled micrometer-sized ultrasound contrast agents vastly improve signal-to-noise ratios, microbubbles have short circulation lifetimes and poor extravasation from the blood. Previously reported fluorocarbon-based nanoscale contrast agents are more stable but their contrast is generally lower owing to their size and dispersity. The contrast agents reported here are composed of silica nanoparticles of ≈100 nm diameter that are filled with ≈3 nm columnar mesopores. Functionalization of the silica surface with octyl groups and resuspension with Pluronic F127 create particles with pores that remain filled with air but are stable in buffer and serum. Administration of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) allows sensitive imaging of the silica nanoparticles down to 10(10) particles mL(-1) , with continuous imaging for at least 20 min. Control experiments with different silica particles supported the hypothesis that entrapped air could be pulled into bubble nuclei, which can then in turn act as acoustic scatterers. This process results in very little hemolysis in whole blood, indicating potential for nontoxic blood pool imaging. Finally, the particles are lyophilized and reconstituted or stored in PBS (phosphate-buffered saline, at least for four months) with no loss in contrast, indicating stability to storage and reformulation.

Near-infrared photothermal therapy of Prussian-blue-functionalized lanthanide-ion-doped inorganic/plasmonic multifunctional nanostructures for the selective targeting of HER2-expressing breast cancer cells

Multifunctional nanostructure for photothermal therapy of cancer cells.

Development of a Graphene Oxide Nanocarrier for Dual-Drug Chemo-phototherapy to Overcome Drug Resistance in Cancer

Despite tremendous progress in chemotherapy, drug resistance remains a major challenge for anticancer treatment. The combinations of chemo-photothermal and chemo-chemo treatments have been reported to be potential solutions to overcome drug resistance. In this study, we developed a dual-in-dual synergistic therapy based on the use of dual anticancer drug-loaded graphene oxide (GO) stabilized with poloxamer 188 for generating heat and delivering drugs to kill cancer cells under near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. The nanocomparable system is stable and uniform in size, generating sufficient heat to induce cell death. Dual drugs (doxorubicin and irinotecan)-loaded GO (GO-DI) in combination with laser irradiation caused higher cytotoxicity than that caused by the administration of a free single drug as well as a combination of drugs and blank GO in various cancer cells, especially in MDA-MB-231 resistant breast cancer cells. Exposure to "hot" NIR and GO-DI activated the intrinsic apoptosis pathway, which was confirmed based on changes in the morphology of cell nuclei and overexpression of apoptosis-related proteins. On the basis of the results, the combined treatment showed a synergistic effect compared to the effect of chemotherapy or photothermal treatment alone, demonstrating higher therapeutic efficacy to overcome one of the most severe problem in anticancer therapy, that of intrinsic resistance to chemotherapeutics.

Perfluorocarbon-Encapsulated PLGA-PEG Emulsions as Enhancement Agents for Highly Efficient Reoxygenation to Cell and Organism

Perfluorocarbon (PFC), a kind of oxygen carrier, is encapsulated in PLGA-PEG to prepare a PLGA-PEG/PFC emulsion for highly efficient reoxygenation to cell and organism. HCT 116 cells are used as a model cell, whose viability has a significant enhancement after reoxygenation with PLGA-PEG/PFC emulsion because of the sufficient and timely oxygen supply. Meanwhile, hypoxia-reoxygenation injury will happen along with cell hypoxia-reoxygenation treatment, which is reflected by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cells. However, the integration of intracellular ROS and cell viability implies that the degree of hypoxia-reoxygenation injury is sublethal to HCT116 cells when the concentration of PLGA-PEG/PFC emulsion is lower than 0.2 mg/mL. Furthermore, the change of the expression level of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) is similar to that of cell viability during reoxygenation, which suggests that HIF-1α or its downstream proteins may make a significant contribution to cell viability. In vivo oxygen supply is assessed in rats through pulmonary delivery, which shows that PLGA-PEG/PFC emulsion can supply oxygen to rats and improve rats' lung ventilation.

Mn2+-doped prussian blue nanocubes for bimodal imaging and photothermal therapy with enhanced performance

Prussian blue (PB) as a clinically adapted agent recently has drawn much attention in cancer theranostics for potential applications in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging as well as photothermal cancer treatment. In this work, we take a closer look at the imaging and therapy performance of PB agents once they are doped with Mn2+. It is found that Mn2+-doped PB nanocubes exhibit increased longitudinal relaxivity along with enhanced optical absorption red-shifted to the near-infrared (NIR) region. Those properties make PB:Mn nanocubes with appropriate surface coatings rather attractive agents for biomedical imaging and cancer therapy, which have been successfully demonstrated in our in vivo experiments for effectively tumor ablation.