Quan Lin

Ultrasmall Au-GRHa Nanosystem for FL/CT Dual-Mode Imaging-Guided Targeting Photothermal Therapy of Ovarian Cancer

As the most common and lethal cancer of the female gonads, ovarian cancer (OC) has a grave impact on people's health. OC is asymptomatic, insidious in onset, difficult to diagnose and treat, fast-growing, and easy to metastasize and has poor prognosis and high mortality. How to detect OC as early as possible and treat it without side effects has become a challenging medical problem. Herein, the ultrasmall Au-GRHa nanosystem was designed for dual-mode imaging-guided photothermal therapy of OC. The synthesized Au-GRHa nanosystem has ultrasmall size, good biocompatibility, and excellent fluorescence and CT imaging performance, which could detect the OC tumor accurately and intuitively and is expected to provide intraoperative visual navigation for clinical surgery. With its excellent photothermal property, the Au-GRHa nanosystem can be utilized for photothermal therapy of OC, thus providing an alternative to, and reducing the hazards posed by, traditional radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In addition, GnRHa endows the AuNDs with excellent ability to target the Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Receptor (GnRH-R), which enhances the uptake of AuNDs by OC tumor cells, improving the targeting accuracy and efficacy of photothermal therapy for OC. This work will facilitate the biomedical applications of the Au-GRHa nanosystem and provide good insights into FL/CT imaging-guided photothermal therapy of OC.

Trojan-horse inspired nanoblaster: X-ray triggered spot attack on radio-resistant cancer through radiodynamic therapy

Radiotherapy as a mainstay of in-depth cervical cancer (CC) treatment suffers from its radioresistance. Radiodynamic therapy (RDT) effectively reverses radio-resistance by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) with deep tissue penetration. However, the photosensitizers stimulated by X-ray have high toxicity and energy attenuation. Therefore, X-ray responsive diselenide-bridged mesoporous silica nanoparticles (DMSNs) are designed, loading X-ray-activated photosensitizer acridine orange (AO) for spot blasting RDT like Trojan-horse against radio-resistance cervical cancer (R-CC). DMSNs can encapsulate a large amount of AO, in the tumor microenvironment (TME), which has a high concentration of hydrogen peroxide, X-ray radiation triggers the cleavage of diselenide bonds, leading to the degradation of DMSNs and the consequent release of AO directly at the tumor site. On the one hand, it solves the problems of rapid drug clearance, adverse distribution, and side effects caused by simple AO treatment. On the other hand, it fully utilizes the advantages of highly penetrating X-ray responsive RDT to enhance radiotherapy sensitivity. This approach results in ROS-induced mitochondria damage, inhibition of DNA damage repair, cell cycle arrest and promotion of cancer cell apoptosis in R-CC. The X-ray responsive DMSNs@AO hold considerable potential in overcoming obstacles for advanced RDT in the treatment of R-CC.