A novel synthesis of a chlorophyll b-gold nanoconjugate used for enhancing photodynamic therapy: In vitro study

Natural compounds-based nanomedicines for cancer treatment: Future directions and challenges

Several efforts have been extensively accomplished for the amelioration of the cancer treatments using different types of new drugs and less invasives therapies in comparison with the traditional therapeutic modalities, which are widely associated with numerous drawbacks, such as drug resistance, non-selectivity and high costs, restraining their clinical response. The application of natural compounds for the prevention and treatment of different cancer cells has attracted significant attention from the pharmaceuticals and scientific communities over the past decades. Although the use of nanotechnology in cancer therapy is still in the preliminary stages, the application of nanotherapeutics has demonstrated to decrease the various limitations related to the use of natural compounds, such as physical/chemical instability, poor aqueous solubility, and low bioavailability. Despite the nanotechnology has emerged as a promise to improve the bioavailability of the natural compounds, there are still limited clinical trials performed for their application with various challenges required for the pre-clinical and clinical trials, such as production at an industrial level, assurance of nanotherapeutics long-term stability, physiological barriers and safety and regulatory issues. This review highlights the most recent advances in the nanocarriers for natural compounds secreted from plants, bacteria, fungi, and marine organisms, as well as their role on cell signaling pathways for anticancer treatments. Additionally, the clinical status and the main challenges regarding the natural compounds loaded in nanocarriers for clinical applications were also discussed.

The Role of Phthalocyanine-Gold Nanoconjugates (Pc-Au NCs) in Ameliorating the Hepatic and Renal Toxicity-Induced by Silver Nanoparticles (Ag NPs) in Male Rats

Recently, gold nanoparticles (Au Nps) have gained tremendous attention for its unique properties as a safe nanocarrier for delivering drugs that are used in different disease diagnoses. Although silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) have been generally applied due to their strong antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, and antimicrobial properties, their toxicity is a subject of sustained debate, thus requiring further studies. The present study aims to evaluate the potential protective effect of gold nanoparticles and phthalocyanine-gold nanoconjugates (Pc-Au NCs) against the hepatorenal toxicity of silver nanoparticles in male rats. Herein, 60 adult male Rattus norvegicus rats were divided into six equal groups (n = 10/group); the first group was kept as control, the second received gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) intraperitoneally (10 µg/kg) daily for 3 weeks, the third group is gold-phthalocyanine (Pc-Au) group where rats were injected intraperitoneally with gold-phthalocyanine for 3 weeks (10 µg/kg), the fourth group received silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) (4 mg/kg) daily intraperitoneally for 3 weeks, the fifth group is silver + gold nanoparticles group (Ag + Au), and the sixth is silver + gold-phthalocyanine nanoconjugates (Ag + Pc-Au) group in which rats were intraperitoneally injected firstly with Ag NPs (4 mg/kg) for 3 weeks then with gold or gold-phthalocyanine for another 3 weeks (10 µg/kg). Our results revealed that Ag NPs could increase the serum AST, ALT, ALP, urea, creatinine, and lipid profile and significantly decreased the total protein and albumin. Moreover, histopathological alterations detected in the kidney and the liver of the Ag NPs group included vascular congestion, inflammatory cell infiltration, and tissue distortion. Alongside, exposure to Ag NPs induces hepatic and renal oxidative stress by suppressing the antioxidant-related genes including glutathione peroxidase 1 (gpx1), superoxide dismutase (sod), and catalase (cat). Ag NPs also upregulated the hepatic and renal genes involved in inflammation such as the interleukin-6 (il-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (tnf-α), nuclear factor kappa B (nf-κβ), apoptosis such as the BCL2 associated X (bax), casp3, and other related to metabolism including asparagine synthetase (asns), suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (socs3), MYC proto-oncogene (myc), and C-C motif chemokine ligand 2 (ccl2). On the other hand, treatment with Au NPs and Pc-Au NCs could effectively ameliorate the hepatorenal damages induced by Ag NPs and improve liver and kidney architecture and function, especially in the Pc-Au NCs group. Briefly, our study revealed the underlined mechanism of Ag NPs hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic effects and that Pc-Au NCs could alleviate these adverse impacts via their anti-oxidative, anti-apoptotic, and anti-inflammatory activities.

Evaluation of chlorophyll-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles for photodynamic therapy on cancer cell lines

Chlorophyll (Chl) is a promising natural photosensitizer (PS) in photodynamic treatment (PDT). Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) were chosen to increase the effectiveness of PDT. This study aimed to evaluate the synergistic efficacy of chlorophyll-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (Chl-MSNs) with photodynamic therapy (PDT) and to investigate their potential toxicity in HepG2, MDA-MB-231, and HSF cell lines. Chl-MSNs were prepared via the physical adsorption method. TEM, DLS, and zeta potential examined morphology, size, and surface characteristics. MSNs and Chl-MSNs were characterized using the same techniques. HPLC was used to assess the encapsulation efficiency. At pH 7.4, an in vitro release experiment of Chl-MSNs was performed. Chl, MSNs, and Chl-MSNs were applied to the three cell lines at different concentrations and subjected to red (650 nm) and blue (450-500 nm) lasers. MSNs and Chl-MSNs' sizes were 90.338 ± 38.49 nm and 123.84 ± 15.67 nm, respectively, as obtained by TEM; the hydrodynamic diameter for MSNs (93.69 ± 20.53 nm) and Chl-MSNs (212.95 ± 19.76 nm); and their zeta potential values are - 16.7 ± 2.19 mV and - 18.84 ± 1.40 mV. The encapsulation efficiency of Chl-MSNs was 70%. Chl-MSNs displayed no toxicity in dark conditions but showed excellent photostability under blue and red light exposure. Furthermore, using Chl over Chl-MSNs has a higher PDT efficiency than the tested cell lines. Chl-MSNs have the potential to be an effective delivery system. PDT proved to be an essential technique for cancer treatment. Blue laser is recommended over red laser with Chl and MSNs for destroying cancer cells.

Green synthesis of silver and iron oxide nanoparticles mediated photothermal effects on Blastocystis hominis

The evolution of parasite resistance to antiparasitic agents has become a serious health issue indicating a critical and pressing need to develop new therapeutics that can conquer drug resistance. Nanoparticles are novel, promising emerging drug carriers that have demonstrated efficiency in treating many parasitic diseases. Lately, attention has been drawn to a broad-spectrum nanoparticle capable of converting absorbed light into heat via the photothermal effect phenomenon. The present study is the first to assess the effect of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) and iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs) as sole agents and with the combined action of the light-emitting diode (LED) on Blastocystis hominins (B. hominis) in vitro. Initially, the aqueous synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, zeta potential, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The anti-blastocyst efficiency of these NPs was tested separately in dark conditions. As these NPs have a wide absorption spectrum in the visible regions, they were also excited by a continuous wave LED of wavelength band (400-700 nm) to test the photothermal effect. The sensitivity of B. hominis cysts was evaluated using scanning laser confocal microscopy whereas the live and dead cells were accurately segmented based on superpixels and the k-mean clustering algorithm. Our findings showed that this excitation led to hyperthermia that induced a significant reduction in the number of cysts treated with photothermally active NPs. The results of this study elucidate the potential role of photothermally active NPs as an effective anti-blastocystis agent. By using this approach, new therapeutic antiparasitic agents can be developed.

Recent developments in photodynamic therapy and its application against multidrug resistant cancers

Recently, photodynamic therapy (PDT) has received a lot of attention for its potential use in cancer treatment. It enables the therapy of a multifocal disease with the least amount of tissue damage. The most widely used prodrug is 5-aminolevulinic acid, which undergoes heme pathway conversion to protoporphyrin IX, which acts as a photosensitizer (PS). Additionally, hematoporphyrin, bacteriochlorin, and phthalocyanine are also studied for their therapeutic potential in cancer. Unfortunately, not every patient who receives PDT experiences a full recovery. Resistance to different anticancer treatments is commonly observed. A few of the resistance mechanisms by which cancer cells escape therapeutics are genetic factors, drug-drug interactions, impaired DNA repair pathways, mutations related to inhibition of apoptosis, epigenetic pathways, etc. Recently, much research has been conducted to develop a new generation of PS based on nanomaterials that could be used to overcome cancer cells' multidrug resistance (MDR). Various metal-based, polymeric, lipidic nanoparticles (NPs), dendrimers, etc, have been utilized in the PDT application against cancer. This article discusses the detailed mechanism by which cancer cells evolve towards MDR as well as recent advances in PDT-based NPs for use against multidrug-resistant cancers.

A new perspective on quantitative assessment of photodynamic therapy mediated hydrogel nanocomposite in wound healing using objective biospeckle and morphological local-gradient

Skin wounding is a serious public health issue, especially when considering factors that accelerate tissue recovery. Consequently, the use of photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an effective wound-healing treatment has attracted more scientific attention. Although assessing the wound healing rate is crucial for appropriate monitoring of the probability of wound healing and evaluating the treatment efficiency, the currently used techniques lack the ability to provide such information. Therefore, this study has two aims, first, it contributes to the development of a new image-guided biospeckle system for quantitative monitoring of skin wound healing rate. Second, it evaluates the potential of using a novel synthesized PDT-mediated polyethylene glycol fabric with methylene blue (PEG-MB) hydrogel nanocomposite in accelerating wound healing. The proposed imaging system initially acquires raw biospeckle images from the wound regions of adult healthy albino mice treated with the synthesized hydrogel nanocomposite. Each raw biospeckle image is then converted into maps of morphological local-gradient matrices implemented from the combination of dilation and erosion operations at different radii up to 25 pixels. Subsequently, their intensity histogram statistics are computed, taking central moments as the feature set. Final characterization is achieved via a linear combination of the biospeckle statistics maintaining as much variance as possible using principal component analysis (PCA). The results confirmed by cytokine concentration measurement and histological investigation demonstrate that the innovative biospeckle image-guided system is ideal for investigating wound healing and suggest the potential of the hydrogel nanocomposite as an active dressing.

Combination of carboplatin and photodynamic therapy with 9-hydroxypheophorbide ɑ enhances mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum apoptotic effect in AMC-HN-3 laryngeal cancer cells

BACKGROUND

Previously, we demonstrated that the combined mode of carboplatin (CBDCA) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) based on 9-hydroxypheophorbide (9-HPbD) enhanced cytotoxicity and apoptosis on AMC-HN-3 laryngeal cancer cells. The present study aimed to investigate anti-tumor effect of the combined therapy in vivo and the potential role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in these enhanced apoptotic pathways initiated by the combined therapy in AMC-HN-3 cells.

METHODS

Mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and intracellular Ca²⁺were detected under confocal microscopy. Various apoptotic pathways were detected by western blots. In vivo study with the combined regimen was also performed on AMC-HN-3 cells-xenograft nude mice.

RESULTS

In vitro study showed that the combined treatment could decrease the level of MMP, increase intracellular Ca²⁺ and AIF translocation, and activate the expression of caspase-12. Mechanismly, the augmented apoptotic effect was mediated by ROS. The synergistic antitumor effect was also observed in vivo.

CONCLUSIONS

The mechanism of CBDCA and 9-HPbD-PDT combination involves ROS-mediated mitochondrial and endoplasmic reticulum apoptosis pathways. This combination may be a promising treatment strategy for laryngeal cancer.