Engineering phosphopeptide-decorated magnetic nanoparticles as efficient photothermal agents for solid tumor therapy.

Due to the high therapeutic efficiency and minimum damage towards normal tissues, phototherapy has drawn a great deal of attention in recent decades. Herein, we reported the synthesis of novel phosphopeptide-decorated magnetic nanoparticles (peptide-Fe3O4 nanoparticles), and their usages in photothermal therapy against solid tumor. By using a classical coprecipitation method and a facile ligand exchange route, these peptide-Fe3O4 nanoparticles were prepared with inexpensive inhesion. Upon the irradiation of a near-infrared (NIR) light, these nanoagents exhibited great photothermal effect with high photo-stability. In vitro biocompatibility studies of these peptide-Fe3O4 nanoparticles indicated their low cytotoxicity, negligible hemolysis, and no effect on blood coagulation. As expected, 4T1 murine breast cancer cells could be effectively damaged by these light-mediated nanoagents. Significantly, animal experiments demonstrated that these nanoagents held great solid tumor ablation effect with the assistance of a NIR laser irradiation. Additional studies focused on the long-term toxicity of these nanoagents indicated their high bio-compatibility. Thus, these peptide-Fe3O4 nanoparticles could bring more opportunities to a new generation of photothermal agents in the field of biomedicine.

Review of Herbal Traditional Chinese Medicine for the Treatment of Diabetic Nephropathy.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the most serious chronic complications of diabetes; 20-40% of diabetic patients develop into end stage renal disease (ESRD). However, exact pathogenesis of DN is not fully clear and we have great difficulties in curing DN; poor treatment of DN led to high chances of mortality worldwide. A lot of western medicines such as ACEI and ARB have been demonstrated to protect renal function of DN but are not enough to delay or retard the progression of DN; therefore, exploring exact and feasible drug is current research hotspot in medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used to treat and control diabetes and its complications such as DN in a lot of scientific researches, which will give insights into the mechanism of DN, but they are not enough to reveal all the details. In this paper, we summarize the applications of herbal TCM preparations, single herbal TCM, and/or monomers from herbal TCM in the treatment of DN in the recent 10 years, depicting the renal protective effects and the corresponding mechanism, through which we shed light on the renal protective roles of TCM in DN with a particular focus on the molecular basis of the effect and provide a beneficial supplement to the drug therapy for DN.