Recent research progress on tumour-specific responsive hydrogels.

Most existing hydrogels, even recently developed injectable hydrogels that undergo a reversible sol-gel phase transition in response to external stimuli, are designed to gel immediately before or after implantation/injection to prevent the free diffusion of materials and drugs; however, the property of immediate gelation leads to a very weak tumour-targeting ability, limiting their application in anticancer therapy. Therefore, the development of tumour-specific responsive hydrogels for anticancer therapy is imperative because tumour-specific responses improve their tumour-targeting efficacy, increase therapeutic effects, and decrease toxicity and side effects. In this review, we introduce the following three types of tumour-responsive hydrogels: (1) hydrogels that gel specifically at the tumour site; (2) hydrogels that decompose specifically at the tumour site; and (3) hydrogels that react specifically with tumours. For each type, their compositions, the mechanisms of tumour-specific responsiveness and their applications in anticancer treatment are comprehensively discussed.

The direct transfer approach for transcellular drug delivery.

A promising paradigm for drug administration that has garnered increasing attention in recent years is the direct transfer (DT) of nanoparticles for transcellular drug delivery. DT requires direct cell-cell contact and facilitates unidirectional and bidirectional matter exchange between neighboring cells. Consequently, DT enables fast and deep penetration of drugs into the targeted tissues. This comprehensive review discusses the direct transfer concept, which can be delineated into the following three distinct modalities: membrane contact-direct transfer, gap junction-mediated direct transfer (GJ-DT), and tunneling nanotubes-mediated direct transfer (TNTs-DT). Further, the intercellular structures for each modality of direct transfer and their respective merits and demerits are summarized. The review also discusses the recent progress on the drugs or drug delivery systems that could activate DT.

Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of Ephrin A3 in bladder urothelial carcinoma.

Ephrin A3 (EFNA3) is a member of the Eph/ephrin tyrosine kinase family, which is associated with multiple signaling pathways involved in cell growth and tumor cell metastasis. Aberrant regulation of EFNA3 is associated with the occurrence and development of various types of cancer. However, despite the high incidence of EFNA3 upregulation in cancer, studies concerning EFNA3 in urothelial carcinoma have not, to the best of our knowledge, been conducted. In the present study, bioinformatics analyses using data from multiple online databases were performed to confirm the upregulation of EFNA3 in bladder cancer. The co-expression gene set of EFNA3 and enriched signaling pathways were also analyzed. In addition, immunohistochemistry was conducted to detect EFNA3 expression in 491 clinically confirmed bladder urothelial carcinoma samples and 80 non-cancerous bladder tissues. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, binary logistic regression analysis, and Cox regression analysis were conducted to confirm the validity of EFNA3 in predicting patient prognosis and its significance in clinical pathology. Statistical analysis demonstrated a significant association between EFNA3 expression levels with tumor size, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and pathological grade. In conclusion, high EFNA3 expression may be a potential biomarker that indicates bladder tumor occurrence and patient prognosis.