NIR-II-absorbing diimmonium polymer agent achieves excellent photothermal therapy with induction of tumor immunogenic cell death.

Photothermal therapy has shown great promise for cancer treatment and second near-infrared (NIR-II) -absorbing particles could further improve its precision and applicability due to its superior penetration depth and new imaging ability. Herein, high NIR-II-absorbing polymer particles were prepared by using soluble isobutyl-substituted diammonium borates (P-IDI). The P-IDI showed stronger absorption at 1000-1100 nm, which exhibited excellent photostability, strong photoacoustic imaging ability and high photothermal conversion efficiency (34.7%). The investigations in vitro and in vivo demonstrated that the excellent photothermal effect facilitated complete tumor ablation and also triggered immunogenic cell death in activation of the immune response. The high solubility and excellent photothermal conversion ability demonstrated that polymer IDI particles were promising theranostic agents for treatment of tumors with minor side effects.

Mangroves leaves phyllosphere bacteria community and its ability to survive under pyrene stress during the acclimation process.

Plants in general and mangroves in particular can harbor hyper-diverse microorganisms in their different compartments including the phyllosphere area. This study used the leaves of three mangrove species; black mangrove (Avicenia germinans), red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) and mangrove apple (Sonneratia alba) in order to evaluate the phyllosphere epiphytic bacterial community on their leaves surface and assess the ability of some epiphytic bacteria to tolerate and survive under pyrene stress. Through the 16S rRNA genes sequencing, 380203, 405203 and 344863 OTUs were identified respectively in the leaves of mangroves apple, black and red mangroves. The identified OTUs was positively correlated with leaves-wax (p < 0.05, r2 = 0.904), nitrogen (r2 = 0.72), phosphorus content (r2 = 0.62) and the water factor (r2 = 0.93). It was however highly and negatively correlated with the canopy cover (r2 = 0.93). The pyrene degradation rate in the mineral salt medium (MSM) containing pyrene as external stress was different in each mangrove species and varied depending on various factors. Therefore, through the succession culture in MSM, several bacteria strain belonging to Rhizobiales and Enterobacteres were found to be abundant in red mangroves. Bacteria belonging to Bacilliales and Sphingobacteriales were more abundant in mangroves apples and bacteria from Xanthomonadales and Sphingomonadales were more presents in back mangroves. The important finding was to reveal that the black mangrove at the non-submerged substrate, recorded the highest number of OTU, coinciding with its highest leaf's nitrogen and phosphorus content and most importantly, its highest rate of pyrene degradation. The general result of this study join previous research results and get place in the mangrove agenda, as part of a better understanding insight into the role of plant identity in driving the phyllosphere epiphytic microbial community structures in mangrove ecosystems.

Gadolinium-Rose Bengal Coordination Polymer Nanodots for MR-/Fluorescence-Image-Guided Radiation and Photodynamic Therapy.

Combination therapy based on nanomedicine has gained momentum in oncology in recent years, offering superior safety and efficacy over monotherapies. It is critical to design theranostics that are composed of imaging and therapeutic agents already approved. Herein, gadolinium (Gd)-rose bengal coordination polymer nanodots (GRDs) are reported. The GRDs exhibit a unique absorption property and 7.7-fold luminescence enhancement, as well as a 1.9-fold increase in singlet oxygen generation efficiency over free rose bengal. Meanwhile, GRDs exhibit a twofold increase in r1 relaxivity over gadopentetic acid (Gd-DTPA) and have better X-ray absorption ability than rose bengal alone. These excellent properties of the GRDs are verified both in vitro and in vivo. The combination of photodynamic therapy (PDT) and radiation therapy (RT) more significantly inhibits tumor growth than monotherapies (i.e., PDT or RT). This work offers a new route to designing and synthesizing Gd-based nanotheranostics for image-guided cancer therapy.

Hollow mesoporous carbon nanospheres for imaging-guided light-activated synergistic thermo-chemotherapy.

Carbon-based light-activated materials can absorb optical energy to generate photoacoustic (PA) signals for imaging or transduce optical photons to thermal energy, which holds great promise for biomedical applications. Herein, we synthesize hollow and mesoporous carbon nanospheres (HMCNs) with uniform size on a large scale. The properties of hollow cavity and mesoporous structures make the HMCNs achieve high drug loading (480 mg DOX per g HMCNs). The present intense near infrared (NIR) absorbance achieves excellent photoacoustic imaging ability and photothermal conversion efficacy (32.0%). More interestingly, the encapsulated drugs can have a triggered release under NIR irradiation. The investigations in vitro and in vivo demonstrate that HMCNs have excellent biocompatibility, and accumulate in tumors by the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. Moreover, under NIR irradiation, in vivo evaluation shows that HMCNs can perform strong PA imaging, and induce great tumor inhibition by the combination of chemotherapy and PTT under the guidance of photoacoustic imaging. The present study provides new insight for design of novel biocompatible light-activated carbons for cancer nanotheranostics.