Catalytically Active Metal-Organic Frameworks Elicit Robust Immune Response to Combination Chemodynamic and Checkpoint Blockade Immunotherapy

Prospects, advances and biological applications of MOF-based platform for the treatment of lung cancer

Nowadays in our society, lung cancer is exhibiting a high mortality rate and threat to human health. Conventional diagnostic techniques used in the field of lung cancer often necessitate the use of extensive instrumentation, exhibit a tendency for false positives, and are not suitable for widespread early screening purposes. Conventional approaches to treat lung cancer primarily involve surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. However, these broad-spectrum treatments suffer from drawbacks such as imprecise targeting and significant side effects, which restrict their widespread use. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted significant attention in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer owing to their tunable electronic properties and structures and potential applications. These porous nanomaterials are formed through the intricate assembly of metal centers and organic ligands, resulting in highly versatile frameworks. Compared to traditional diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, MOFs can improve the sensitivity of lung cancer biomarker detection in the diagnosis of lung cancer. In terms of treatment, they can significantly reduce side effects and improve therapeutic efficacy. Hence, this perspective provides an overview concerning the advancements made in the field of MOFs as potent biosensors for lung cancer biomarkers. It also delves into the latest research dealing with the use of MOFs as carriers for drug delivery. Additionally, it explores the applications of MOFs in various therapeutic approaches, including chemodynamic therapy, photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, and immunotherapy. Furthermore, this review comprehensively analyses potential applications of MOFs as biosensors in the field of lung cancer diagnosis and combines different therapeutic approaches aiming for enhanced therapeutic efficacy. It also presents a concise overview of the existing obstacles, aiming to pave the way for future advancements in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Rational design of ROS generation nanosystems to regulate innate immunity of macrophages, dendrtical and natural killing cells for immunotherapy

Innate immunity serves as the first line of host defense in the body against pathogenic infections or malignant diseases. Reactive oxygen species (ROS), as vital signaling mediators, can efficiently elicit innate immune responses to oxidative-related stress or damage. In the era of nanomedicine, various immunostimulatory nanosystems have been extensively designed and synthesized to elicit immune responses for the immunotherapy of cancer or infectious diseases. In this review, we emphasize that ROS derived from nanosystems regulates innate immune cells to potentiate immunotherapeutic efficacy, such as primarily dendritic cells, macrophages, or natural killer cells. Meanwhile, we also summarize the pathway of ROS generation triggered by exogenous nanosystems in innate immune cells of DCs, macrophages, and NK cells.

Emerging Chemodynamic Nanotherapeutics for Cancer Treatment

Chemodynamic therapy (CDT) has emerged as a transformative paradigm in the realm of reactive oxygen species -mediated cancer therapies, exhibiting its potential as a sophisticated strategy for precise and effective tumor treatment. CDT primarily relies on metal ions and hydrogen peroxide to initiate Fenton or Fenton-like reactions, generating cytotoxic hydroxyl radicals. Its notable advantages in cancer treatment are demonstrated, including tumor specificity, autonomy from external triggers, and a favorable side-effect profile. Recent advancements in nanomedicine are devoted to enhancing CDT, promising a comprehensive optimization of CDT efficacy. This review systematically elucidates cutting-edge achievements in chemodynamic nanotherapeutics, exploring strategies for enhanced Fenton or Fenton-like reactions, improved tumor microenvironment modulation, and precise regulation in energy metabolism. Moreover, a detailed analysis of diverse CDT-mediated combination therapies is provided. Finally, the review concludes with a comprehensive discussion of the prospects and intrinsic challenges to the application of chemodynamic nanotherapeutics in the domain of cancer treatment.

Biomedical application of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in cancer therapy: Stimuli-responsive and biomimetic nanocomposites in targeted delivery, phototherapy and diagnosis

The nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field that has become a hot topic in cancer therapy. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous materials and hybrid composites consisted of organic linkers and metal cations. Despite the wide application of MOFs in other fields, the potential of MOFs for purpose of cancer therapy has been revealed by the recent studies. High surface area and porosity, significant drug loading and encapsulation efficiency are among the benefits of using MOFs in drug delivery. MOFs can deliver genes/drugs with selective targeting of tumor cells that can be achieved through functionalization with ligands. The photosensitizers and photo-responsive nanostructures including carbon dots and gold nanoparticles can be loaded in/on MOFs to cause phototherapy-mediated tumor ablation. The immunogenic cell death induction and increased infiltration of cytotoxic CD8+ and CD4+ T cells can be accelerated by MOF platforms in providing immunotherapy of tumor cells. The stimuli-responsive MOF platforms responsive to pH, redox, enzyme and ion can accelerate release of therapeutics in tumor site. Moreover, MOF nanocomposites can be modified ligands and green polymers to improve their selectivity and biocompatibility for cancer therapy. The application of MOFs for the detection of cancer-related biomarkers can participate in the early diagnosis of patients.

NQO-1 activatable NIR photosensitizer for visualization and selective killing of breast cancer cells

The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer is of immense importance in improving patient outcomes. The biological marker NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 was utilized to design BrCyS-Q, a near-infrared activatable photosensitizer for breast cancer. BrCyS-Q was successfully employed to diagnose breast cancer cells using fluorescence and photodynamic inhibition. The findings of this research may offer novel insights for the diagnosis and treatment of clinical breast cancer via photodynamic therapy.

Amplifying "eat me signal" by immunogenic cell death for potentiating cancer immunotherapy

Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a unique mode of cell death, which can release immunogenic damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and tumor-associated antigens to trigger long-term protective antitumor immune responses. Thus, amplifying "eat me signal" during tumor ICD cascade is critical for cancer immunotherapy. Some therapies (radiotherapy, photodynamic therapy (PDT), photothermal therapy (PTT), etc.) and inducers (chemotherapeutic agents, etc.) have enabled to initiate and/or facilitate ICD and activate antitumor immune responses. Recently, nanostructure-based drug delivery systems have been synthesized for inducing ICD through combining treatment of chemotherapeutic agents, photosensitizers for PDT, photothermal transformation agents for PTT, radiosensitizers for radiotherapy, etc., which can release loaded agents at an appropriate dosage in the designated place at the appropriate time, contributing to higher efficiency and lower toxicity. Also, immunotherapeutic agents in combination with nanostructure-based drug delivery systems can produce synergetic antitumor effects, thus potentiating immunotherapy. Overall, our review outlines the emerging ICD inducers, and nanostructure drug delivery systems loading diverse agents to evoke ICD through chemoradiotherapy, PDT, and PTT or combining immunotherapeutic agents. Moreover, we discuss the prospects and challenges of harnessing ICD induction-based immunotherapy, and highlight the significance of multidisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration to promote the optimal translation of this treatment strategy.

Current status of Fe-based MOFs in biomedical applications

Recently nanoparticle-based platforms have gained interest as drug delivery systems and diagnostic agents, especially in cancer therapy. With their ability to provide preferential accumulation at target sites, nanocarrier-constructed antitumor drugs can improve therapeutic efficiency and bioavailability. In contrast, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have received increasing academic interest as an outstanding class of coordination polymers that combine porous structures with high drug loading via temperature modulation and ligand interactions, overcoming the drawbacks of conventional drug carriers. FeIII-based MOFs are one of many with high biocompatibility and good drug loading capacity, as well as unique Fenton reactivity and superparamagnetism, making them highly promising in chemodynamic and photothermal therapy, and magnetic resonance imaging. Given this, this article summarizes the applications of FeIII-based MOFs in three significant fields: chemodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy and MRI, suggesting a logical route to new strategies. This article concludes by summarising the primary challenges and development prospects in these promising research areas.