Polydopamine-Functionalized Superparamagnetic Magnetite Nanocrystal Clusters - Rapid Magnetic Response and Efficient Antitumor Drug Carriers

Polydopamine-Incorporated Nanoformulations for Biomedical Applications

Polydopamine (PDA), a pigment in natural melanin, has attracted considerable attention because of its excellent optical properties, extraordinary adhesion, and good biocompatibility, which make it a promising material for application in energy, environmental, and biomedical fields. In this review, PDA-incorporated nanoformulations are focused for biomedical applications such as drug delivery, bioimaging, and tumor therapy. First, the recent advances in PDA-incorporated nanoformulations for drug delivery are discussed. Further, their application in boimaging, such as fluorescence imaging, photothermal imaging, and photoacoustic imaging, is reviewed. Next, their therapeutic applications, including chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, and synergistic therapy are discussed. Finally, other biomedical applications of PDA-incorporated nanoformulations such as biosensing and clinical diagnosis are briefly presented. Finally, the biomedical applications of PDA-incorporated nanoformulations along with their prospects are summarized.

Recent progress in the biomedical applications of polydopamine nanostructures

Polydopamine is a dark brown-black insoluble biopolymer produced by autoxidation of dopamine. Although its structure and polymerization mechanism have not been fully understood, there has been a rapid growth in the synthesis and applications of polydopamine nanostructures in biomedical fields such as drug delivery, photothermal therapy, bone and tissue engineering, and cell adhesion and patterning, as well as antimicrobial applications. This article is dedicated to reviewing some of the recent polydopamine developments in these biomedical fields. Firstly, the polymerization mechanism is introduced with a discussion of the factors that influence the polymerization process. The discussion is followed by the introduction of various forms of polydopamine nanostructures and their recent applications in biomedical fields, especially in drug delivery. Finally, the review is summarized followed by brief comments on the future prospects of polydopamine.

Recent developments in dopamine-based materials for cancer diagnosis and therapy

Dopamine-based materials are emerging as novel biomaterials and have attracted considerable interests in the fields of biosensing, bioimaging and cancer therapy due to their unique physicochemical properties, such as versatile adhesion property, high chemical reactivity, excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, strong photothermal conversion capacity, etc. In this review, we present an overview of recent research progress on dopamine-based materials for diagnosis and therapy of cancer. The review starts with a summary of the physicochemical properties of dopamine-based materials in general. Then detailed description is followed on their applications in the fields of diagnosis and treatment of cancers. The review concludes with an outline of some remaining challenges for dopamine-based materials to be used for clinical applications.