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Photo-induced cancer therapies, mainly including photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT), have attracted numerous attentions owing to the high selectivity, convenience, and few side effects. However, single PTT usually requires high laser power density, and single PDT usually needs a high photosensitizer dosage. Herein, a kind of composite nanocarrier based on clay (laponite)-polypyrrole (LP) nanodisks was synthesized via the in situ polymerization of pyrrole in the interlayer space of laponite. LP composite nanodisks were then coated with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to form the LP-PVP (LPP) composite nanodisks which show an excellent colloidal stability and in vitro and in vivo biocompatibility. The interlayer space of LPP can be further used for the loading of Chlorin e6 (Ce6), with an ultrahigh loading capacity of about 89.2%. Furthermore, the LPP nanocarrier can enhance the PDT effect of Ce6 under the irradiation of a 660 nm laser, through enhancing its solubility and cellular uptake amount. Besides, it was found that LPP nanodisks exhibit a more outstanding photothermal performance under a 980 nm near-infrared laser (NIR) than a 808 nm NIR laser, with the photothermal conversion efficiency of 45.7 and 27.7%, respectively. The in vitro and in vivo tumor therapy results evidently confirm that the Ce6-loaded LPP nanodisks have a combined tumor PTT and PDT effect, which can significantly suppress the tumor malignant proliferation.

Alginate-Ca2+ hydrogel has been used to immobilize photothermal materials as well as chemotherapy drugs at lesion sites to prevent their entry into the bloodstream. However, the alginate-Ca2+ gelation mechanism may result in hardening of the blood vessels because of Ca2+ migration to the lesion site. In this study, a unique and facile one-pot formation of chemotherapeutic (doxorubicin, DOX) and polypyrrole-containing alginate hydrogel was designed by introducing Fe3+, which can synchronously induce the polymerization of pyrrole and gelatinization of alginate, into the DOX/pyrrole/alginate solution. The formed composite hydrogel was endowed with superior photothermal conversion properties in both the NIR-I (650–950 nm) and NIR-II (1000–1700 nm) biowindows and light-to-heat conversion efficiency higher than 50%, which enabled effective tumor hyperthermia treatment. Besides, near-infrared (NIR) irradiation could be used as a remote controller to trigger the DOX-release because of the heat generation, thus ac...

The bottom-up approach can be used to synthesize MoS2 nanosheets with controlled morphology and synchronous surface modification. However, these MoS2 nanosheets frequently stacked with each other to form a multi-layer structure, which greatly affects the improvement of their drug loading capacity. In this work, we reported a facile bottom-up synthesis of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) coated biocompatible MoS2 nanoparticles (NPs) with admirable drug loading capacity for synergistic tumor photothermal and chemotherapy. The colloidal-stable MoS2 NPs possessed excellent photothermal transducing performance with the photothermal conversion efficiency of 37.5%. Further, the porous structure of MoS2 NPs facilitated the drug payload with a tunable drug loading percentage of 7%–72%. More importantly, the drug release from the MoS2 NPs followed a controlled pH- and NIR-dual modal responsive manner. The material design takes account of the drug loading capacity of NPs and the photothermal feature of MoS2, providing a paradigm that the research of cancer therapy agents can be moved forward by integrating the advantages of different nanomaterials into one dosage.

Very different from traditional inside-out method, which used guest material as the inside core and then surface-coated outer layer, herein, we propose a facile and unique outside-in approach for the synthesis of high dispersive mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN)/MoS2-PEG nanoparticles (SMPs) based on the differences of precursor solubility in different solvents, for the first time. The prepared SMPs exhibit both higher drug loading efficiency of 64.7% owing to the pore structure of mesoporous silica, and excellent photothermal performance with photothermal efficiency of 41.5% due to the inside decorated MoS2 nanosheets, which could be used for the combination of tumor hyperthermia and chemotherapy. The in vivo results indicate that SMPs show great synergistic effect, i.e., the heat produced during PTT can increase the chemotherapy sensitivity of DOX and synergistically improve its therapeutic effect. Such a facile strategy provides a new facile way to construct a novel theranostic agent by integrating different functions into one dosage, and shows a promising approach for the construction of nanomaterials using MSN as a template.

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been receiving great attention as NIR photothermal transducing agent in tumor photothermal therapy. Keeping in mind the low efficiency of the conventional top-down exfoliated 2D TMDs and the complexity of their surface modifications, we herein proposed a bottom-up strategy for the one-pot hydrothermal and controlled synthesis of surface polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) modified WS2 nanosheets. The material design was based on the chelating-coordinating effect between the lone pair electrons of oxygen of PVP carbonyl group and the unoccupied orbital (5d orbitals) of tungsten. The WS2 nanosheets with synchronous surface PVP grafting showed an excellent photothermal conversion performance, while the surface anchored PVP guaranteed its colloidal stability. Moreover, the strong X-ray attenuation ability and near-infrared (NIR) absorbance of WS2-PVP360kDa enabled the sensitive in vitro and in vivo computed tomography and photoacoustic imaging. The WS2-PVP360kDa nanosheets were biocompatible and exhibited promising in vitro and in vivo anti-cancer efficacy. Findings in this report may greatly promote the design of colloidal stable and biocompatible 2D TMDs and their future clinical translations. Statement of Significance. A bottom-up strategy for the one-pot and controlled synthesis of surface polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) modified WS2 nanosheets was proposed for the first time. By hydrothermally treating the mixture solution of tetrathiotungstate and PVP, Owing to the chelating-coordinating effect between the lone pair electrons of oxygen of PVP carbonyl group and the unoccupied orbital (5d orbitals) of tungsten, PVP was synchronously graphed on WS2-PVP nanosheets surface. The formed WS2-PVP nanosheets were colloidal stable, biocompatible, and exhibited promising computed tomography, photoacoustic imaging and tumor photothermal therapy efficacy both in vitro and in vivo.

Artificial enzymes to mimic the endogenous antioxidant system are promising candidates for treating and manipulating the in vivo dysregulated redox homeostasis. Though progresses have been made for reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging using nanozymes, nanomaterials with advanced multi-enzymatic activities and enhanced biocompatibility have been rarely explored. Herein, we report the facile construction of RuO2-PVP nanoparticles, as a single-component, multi-enzyme-mimicking nano-platform for multi-ROS scavenging, which simultaneously shows multi-enzymatic antioxidant activities mimicking intrinsic catalase, superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, as well as ascorbate peroxidase and thiol peroxidase. Owing to the multifunctional self-synergistic inhibitions on multi-ROS, e.g., H2O2, ·OH and O2·−, the fabricated RuO2-PVP nanozymes demonstrate a prominent redox homeostasis protection effect, which not only protects lipid, DNA and protein from damages by UV/H2O2/Fenton stimulation in vitro, but also performs magnificent ROS elimination properties against inflammation and Parkinson's disease in vivo. The constructed RuO2-based nanozymes provide a potential therapeutic nano-platform for the treatment of oxidative stress-related diseases.

The purpose of this study was to design an injectable hydrogel with temperature-sensitive property for safe and high efficient in vivo colon cancer hyperthermia and chemotherapy. Chitosan (CS) solution was injected into the tumor at room temperature and automatically gelled after warming to body temperature in the present of β-glycerophosphate (β-GP). Combined localized tumor photothermal and chemotherapy were achieved by dissolving photothermal material MoS2/Bi2S3-PEG (MBP) nanosheets and drug molecule doxorubicin (DOX) into the hydrogel, and the gel system could encapsulate DOX and MBP nanosheets and prevent them from entering the blood circulation and damaging normal tissues and cells. More importantly, the CS/MBP/DOX (CMD) hydrogel exhibited a photothermal efficiency of 22.18% and 31.42% in the first and second near infrared light (NIR I and NIR II) biowindows respectively at a low MBP concentration (0.5 mg/mL). Besides, the release of the DOX from CMD hydrogel was controllable since the gel temperature could be governed by NIR laser irradiation. Moreover, the chitosan-based hydrogel had antibacterial effects. The designed composite hydrogel is anticipated to act as a platform for the high efficient treatment of tumors owing to the different penetration depths of NIR I and NIR II.

With an excellent near-infrared (NIR) light-responsive property, polypyrrole (PPy) nanoparticle has emerged as a promising NIR photothermal transducing agent for tumor photothermal therapy (PTT). Herein, we reported the PVP mediated one-pot synthesis of colloidal stable and biocompatible PPy nanoparticles (PPy-PVP NPs) for combined tumor photothermal-chemotherapy. The influence of molecular weight and PVP concentration on the spectroscopic characteristic, photothermal feature, drug loading performance, and antitumor efficiency of the resultant PPy-PVP NPs was systematically studied. By choosing PVP with a molecular weight of 360 kDa (concentration of 5 mg/mL) as the template and surface modifier during the synthesis, PPy-PVP NPs with optimal spectroscopic characteristic, photothermal feature, drug loading performance, and antitumor efficiency were synthesized. Findings in this study are anticipated to provide an in-depth understanding of the important character of surface engineering in the rational design and biomedical applications of PPy NPs.

We designed an injectable hydrogel by dissolving MoS2/Bi2S3-PEG (MBP), doxorubicin (DOX) and agar into water for the concurrent tumor photothermal and chemotherapy. The formed solution was able to be intra-tumorally (I.T.) administered into tumor at a relatively high temperature and automatically formed a hydrogel after cooling to body temperature. The resultant Agar/MBP/DOX (AMD) hydrogel can act as a macro-vessel to retain the MBP nanosheet and DOX and restrict their access to body fluid circulation. Moreover, AMD hydrogel did not compromise the photoacoustic and computed tomography imaging capacity, as well as the photothermal and chemotherapy efficiency of MBP nanosheets and DOX. The heat from the photothermal transformation of MBP nanosheet can promote the drug-release from the hydrogel and thus enable an on-demand drug release. Furthermore, antibiotics were also able to be encapsulated in the hydrogel to avoid the potential wound infection during tumor surgery.