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Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is standard locoregional therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that involves the injection of chemotherapeutic drugs with embolic agents into tumor tissues through intra-arterial transcatheter infusion. TACE technology using lipiodol emulsion has been most widely used in the treatment of human HCC. However, lipiodol emulsions with anticancer drugs do not stably maintain high drug concentrations at tumor sites. Herein, we developed a dual-modality imaging nanoplatform for the TACE treatment of liver cancer by integrating periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) with magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) nanoparticles and Cy5.5 molecules (denoted as Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5). Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5 showed an excellent doxorubicin (Dox)-loading capacity, sensitive drug release behavior under acidic conditions, and good biocompatibility. Moreover, Cy5.5-mediated optical imaging showed that Dox-loaded Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5 (Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5-Dox) could enter liver cancer cells and effectively inhibit their growth. In addition, Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5-Dox was used in combination with transarterial embolization for the treatment of in situ VX2 liver tumors in rabbits. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) evaluation showed that Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5-Dox perfused through arteries was deposited into liver tumors, and Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5-Dox combined with lipiodol to control liver tumors yielded the optimal therapeutic effect. In addition, histological analysis showed that compared with both lipiodol embolization and traditional lipiodol combined with Dox chemoembolization, Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5-Dox combined with lipiodol chemoembolization induced more complete tumor tissue necrosis. In summary, these results indicate that the Fe 3 O 4 @PMO-Cy5.5-Dox platform has the potential to become an advanced tool for the transarterial treatment of unresectable liver cancer., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In the work, yolk-shell structured mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (YSMONs) are successfully prepared by a mild alkalescent etching approach. The method is very convenient, in which mesostructured organosilica nanospheres are directly transformed into yolk-shell structures after etching with mild alkalescent solution (e.g. sodium carbonate solution). The prepared YSMONs have ethane-bridged frameworks, a monodisperse diameter (320 nm), a large pore volume (1.0 cm 3  g -1 ), a uniform mesopore (2.4 nm) and a high surface area (1327 m 2  g -1 ). In vitro cytotoxicity and hemolysis assays demonstrate the ethane-bridged YSMONs possess excellent biocompatibility and low hemolysis activity. In addition, the YSMONs show a high loading capacity up to 181 μg mg -1 for anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). Confocal laser scanning microscopy and flow cytometry analyses show that the DOX loaded YSMONs (YSMONs-DOX) can be effiectively internalized by multidurg resistant MCF-7/MDR human breast cancer cells. The chemotherapy against MCF-7/MDR cells demonstrate that the YSMONs-DOX possess higher therapeutic efficacy compared to that of free DOX, suggesting that the YSMONs synthesized by the mild alkalescent etching method have great promise as advanced nanoplatforms for biological applications., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In this work, we report a facile biphasic-to-monophasic successive co-assembly approach to synthesize yolk-shell structured mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (MONs). The yolk-shell structured MONs possess ethane-bridged frameworks, high surface area (1023m 2 g -1 ), radially oriented mesochannels (3.8nm), large pore volume (0.99cm 3 g -1 ), and tunable diameter (147-324nm) and shell thickness (23-53nm). The biphasic-to-monophasic successive co-assembly method is intrinsically simple and requires neither sacrificial templates nor multistep coating processes. The key of the method is that the interiors of the mesostructured organosilica nanospheres grown in the biphasic system have a lower condensation degree and Si-C-C-Si species content than the outer shells formed in the monophasic system. Thus, the interior layer is attracted by OH -1 anions and dissolved in the monophasic system, forming the yolk-shell structures. In vitro cytotoxicity and haemolysis assays demonstrate that the ethane-bridged yolk-shell MONs possess excellent biocompatibility. Furthermore, the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin (DOX) is loaded into the yolk-shell MONs to kill drug-resistant MCF-7/ADR human breast cancer cells. Compared with free DOX and DOX-loaded typical MONs, the DOX-loaded yolk-shell MONs have higher chemotherapeutic efficacy against MCF-7/ADR cells, suggesting the great potential of yolk-shell MONs synthesized via the biphasic-to-monophasic successive co-assembly approach in the biomedical field., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)