Intelligent Self-amplifying Ferroptosis-inducible nanoplatform for enhanced tumor microenvironment reconstruction and combination therapy

Iron-Based Nanomaterials for Modulating Tumor Microenvironment

Iron-based nanomaterials (IBNMs) have been widely applied in biomedicine applications including magnetic resonance imaging, targeted drug delivery, tumor therapy, and so forth, due to their unique magnetism, excellent biocompatibility, and diverse modalities. Further research on its enormous biomedical potential is still ongoing, and its new features are constantly being tapped and demonstrated. Among them, various types of IBNMs have demonstrated significant cancer therapy capabilities by regulating the tumor microenvironment (TME). In this review, a variety of IBNMs including iron oxide-based nanomaterials (IONMs), iron-based complex conjugates (ICCs), and iron-based single iron atom nanomaterials (ISANMs) will be introduced, and their advantages in regulating TME would also be emphasized. Besides, the recent progress of IBNMs for cancer diagnosis and treatment through the strategy of modulating TME will be summarized, including overcoming hypoxia, modulating acidity, decreasing redox species, and immunoregulation. Finally, the challenges and opportunities in this field are briefly discussed. This review is expected to contribute to the future design and development of next-generation TME-modulate IBNMs for cancer treatment.

Nanoformula Design for Inducing Non-Apoptotic Cell Death Regulation: A Powerful Booster for Cancer Immunotherapy

Cancer treatment has witnessed revolutionary advancements marked by the emergence of immunotherapy, specifically immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). However, the inherent low immunogenicity of tumor cells and the intricate immunosuppressive network within the tumor microenvironment (TME) pose significant challenges to the further development of immunotherapy. Nanotechnology has ushered in unprecedented opportunities and vast prospects for tumor immunotherapy. Nevertheless, traditional nano-formulations often rely on inducing apoptosis to kill cancer cells, which encounters the issue of immune silencing, hindering effective tumor immune activation. The non-apoptotic modes of regulated cell death (RCD), including pyroptosis, ferroptosis, autophagy, necroptosis, and cuproptosis, have gradually garnered attention. These non-apoptotic cell death pathways can induce effective immunogenic cell death (ICD), enhancing cancer immunotherapy. This review comprehensively explores advanced nano-formulation design strategies and their applications in enhancing cancer immunotherapy by promoting non-apoptotic RCD in recent years. It also discusses the potential advantages of these strategies in inducing tumor-specific non-apoptotic RCD. By deeply understanding the significance of non-apoptotic RCD in synergistic cancer immunotherapy, this article provides valuable insights for developing more advanced nano-delivery systems that can robustly induce highly immunogenic non-apoptotic modes, offering novel research and development avenues to address the clinical challenges encountered by immunotherapy represented by ICB.

Iron-MOFs for Biomedical Applications

Over the past two decades, iron-based metal-organic frameworks (Fe-MOFs) have attracted significant research interest in biomedicine due to their low toxicity, tunable degradability, substantial drug loading capacity, versatile structures, and multimodal functionalities. Despite their great potential, the transition of Fe-MOFs-based composites from laboratory research to clinical products remains challenging. This review evaluates the key properties that distinguish Fe-MOFs from other MOFs and highlights recent advances in synthesis routes, surface engineering, and shaping technologies. In particular, it focuses on their applications in biosensing, antimicrobial, and anticancer therapies. In addition, the review emphasizes the need to develop scalable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective production methods for additional Fe-MOFs to meet the specific requirements of various biomedical applications. Despite the ability of Fe-MOFs-based composites to combine therapies, significant hurdles still remain, including the need for a deeper understanding of their therapeutic mechanisms and potential risks of resistance and overdose. Systematically addressing these challenges could significantly enhance the prospects of Fe-MOFs in biomedicine and potentially facilitate their integration into mainstream clinical practice.

Multifunctional Biomimetic Liposomes with Improved Tumor-Targeting for TNBC Treatment by Combination of Chemotherapy, Antiangiogenesis and Immunotherapy

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) featuring high relapses and metastasis shows limited clinical therapeutic efficiency with chemotherapy for the extremely complex tumor microenvironment, especially angiogenesis and immunosuppression. Combination of antiangiogenesis and immunotherapy holds promise for effective inhibition of tumor proliferation and invasion, while it remains challenging for specific targeting drug delivery to tumors and metastatic lesions. Here, a multifunctional biomimetic liposome loading Gambogic acid (G/R-MLP) is developed using Ginsenoside Rg3 (Rg3) to substitute cholesterol and cancer cell membrane coating, which is designed to increase long-circulating action by a low immunogenicity and specifically deliver gambogic acid (GA) to tumor site and metastatic lesions by homologous targeting and glucose transporter targeting. After G/R-MLP accumulates in the primary tumors and metastatic nodules, it synergistically enhances the antitumor efficacy of GA, effectively suppressing the tumor growth and lung metastasis by killing tumor cells, inhibiting tumor cell migration and invasion, achieving antiangiogenesis and improving the antitumor immunity. All in all, the strategy combining chemotherapy, antiangiogenesis, and immunotherapy improves therapeutic efficiency and prolonged survival, providing a new perspective for the clinical treatment of TNBC.

MOFs-Based Magnetic Nanozyme to Boost Cascade ROS Accumulation for Augmented Tumor Ferroptosis

The emerging cell death modality of ferroptosis has garnered increasing attention for antitumor treatment but still suffers from low therapeutic efficacy. A metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)-based magnetic nanozyme (PZFH) comprising porphyrin-based Zr-MOF (PCN) on zinc ferrite (ZF) nanoparticles modified with hyaluronic acid, delivering excellent magnetophotonic response for efficient ferroptosis, is reported here. PZFH shows multienzyme-like cascade activity encompassing a photon-triggered oxidase-like catalysis to generate O2 -, which is converted to H2O2 by superoxide dismutase-like activity and subsequent ·OH by magneto-promoted peroxidase (POD) behavior. Newly formed Fe─N coordination and increased Fe2+/Fe3+ levels in the PZFH contribute to the enhanced POD activity, which is further enhanced by accelerated surface electron transfer when exposure to alternated magnetic field. Accumulation of lipid peroxides is eventually accomplished through the conversion of ·OH radicals and singlet oxygen (1O2) produced through laser irradiation. When combined with the depletion of inhibition of glutathione and glutathione peroxidase 4, PZFH exhibits significantly enhanced ferroptosis in tumor-bearing mice, offering insights into nanomedicine for ferroptosis and holding great promise in clinical antitumor therapies.

A small-molecule Fenton reagent for self-augmented chemodynamic therapy by intelligently regulating intracellular acidosis

A small-molecule Fenton reagent, integrating ferrocene with a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, was designed to intelligently regulate intracellular acidosis for self-augmented chemodynamic therapy. Acidosis coupled with up-regulated ROS levels demonstrated potent cytotoxicity and effective tumor suppression.

Design, synthesis and mechanism study of coumarin-sulfonamide derivatives as carbonic anhydrase IX inhibitors with anticancer activity

In this study, twenty-nine coumarin-3-sulfonamide derivatives, twenty-seven of which are original were designed and synthesized. Cytotoxicity assay indicated that most of these derivatives exhibited moderated to good potency against A549 cells. Among them, compound 8q showed potent inhibition against the four tested cancer cell lines, especially A549 cells with IC50 value of 6.01 ± 0.81 μM, and much lower cytotoxicity on the normal cells was observed compared to the reference compounds. Bioinformatics analysis revealed human carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) was highly expressed in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and associated with poor prognosis. The inhibitory activity of compound 8q against CAIX was assessed by using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations, which revealed prominent interactions of both compound 8q and CAIX at the active site and their high affinity. The results of ELISA assays verified that compound 8q possessed strong inhibitory activity against CAIX and high subtype selectivity, and could also down-regulate the expression of CAIX in A549 cells. Furthermore, the significant inhibitory effects of compound 8q on the migration and invasion of A549 cells were also found. After treatment with compound 8q, intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels increased and mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) decreased. Mechanistic investigation using western blotting revealed compound 8q exerted the anti-migrative and anti-invasive effects probably through mitochondria-mediated PI3K/AKT pathway by targeting CAIX. In summary, coumarin-3-sulfonamide derivatives were developed as potential and effective CAIX inhibitors, which were worthy of further investigation.

Current status of controlled onco-therapies based on metal organic frameworks

Despite consecutive efforts devoted to the establishment of innovative therapeutics for cancer control, cancer remains as a primary global public health concern. Achieving controlled release of anti-cancer agents may add great value to the field of oncology that requires the involvement of nanotechnologies. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) hold great promise in this regard owing to their unique structural properties. MOFs can act as superior candidates for drug delivery given their porous structure and large loading area, and can be prepared into anti-cancer therapeutics by incorporating stimuli-sensitive components into the ligands or nodes of the framework. By combing through chemical and physical features of MOFs favorable for onco-therapeutic applications and current cancer treatment portfolios taking advantages of these characteristics, this review classified MOFs feasible for establishing controlled anti-cancer modalities into 6 categories, outlined the corresponding strategies currently available for each type of MOF, and identified understudied areas and future opportunities towards innovative MOF design for improved or expanded clinical anti-cancer applications.

Ferroptosis: a new strategy for cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is currently one of the prevalent causes of human death. Iron is one of the essential trace elements in the human body and a vital component of living tissues. All organ systems require iron for various metabolic processes, including myocardial and skeletal muscle metabolism, erythropoiesis, mitochondrial function, and oxygen transport. Its deficiency or excess in the human body remains one of the nutritional problems worldwide. The total amount of iron in a normal human body is about 3-5 g. Iron deficiency may cause symptoms such as general fatigue, pica, and nerve deafness, while excessive iron plays a crucial role in the pathophysiological processes of the heart through ferroptosis triggered by the Fenton reaction. It differs from other cell death modes based on its dependence on the accumulation of lipid peroxides and REDOX imbalance, opening a new pathway underlying the pathogenesis and mechanism of CVDs. In this review, we describe the latest research progress on the mechanism of ferroptosis and report its crucial role and association with miRNA in various CVDs. Finally, we summarise the potential therapeutic value of ferroptosis-related drugs or ferroptosis inhibitors in CVDs.