Artificial photoactive chlorophyll conjugated vanadium carbide nanostructure for synergistic photothermal/photodynamic therapy of cancer.

Optically active nanostructures consisting of organic compounds and metallic support have shown great promise in phototherapy due to their increased light absorption capacity and high energy conversion. Herein, we conjugated chlorophyll (Chl) to vanadium carbide (V2C) nanosheets for combined photodynamic/photothermal therapy (PDT/PTT), which reserves the advantages of each modality while minimizing the side effects to achieve an improved therapeutic effect. In this system, the Chl from Leptolyngbya JSC-1 extracts acted as an efficient light-harvest antenna in a wide NIR range and photosensitizers (PSs) for oxygen self-generation hypoxia-relief PDT. The available large surface of two-dimensional (2D) V2C showed high Chl loading efficiency, and the interaction between organic Chl and metallic V2C led to energy conversion efficiency high to 78%. Thus, the Chl/ V2C nanostructure showed advanced performance in vitro cell line killing and completely ablated tumors in vivo with 100% survival rate under a single NIR irradiation. Our results suggest that the artificial optical Chl/V2C nanostructure will benefit photocatalytic tumor eradication clinic application.

Clinical significance of cysteinyl leukotriene receptor expression in primary hepatocellular carcinoma / 中华肝脏病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate expression of the cysteinyl leukotriene receptor (CysLT1R) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and determine its clinical significance.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Cancerous and paraneoplastic liver tissues were collected from 30 patients with HCC and from 12 patients with liver hemangioma patients (controls). Real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry were used to evaluate the expression of CysLT1R in these tissues and assess the relationship with clinical pathological features. T-test,?Fisher's exact test and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis were used for statistical analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The expression of CysLT1R in adjacent liver tissues (100%) was higher than that in the HCC (43.33%, P = 0.000) and normal liver tissues (41.67%, P = 0.000). The level of CysLT1R mRNA was also higher in paraneoplastic liver tissues (0.0339+/-0.0221) than in the paired HCC tissues (0.0127+/-0.0116, t = 2.911, P = 0.008) and normal liver tissues (0.0154+/-0.0123, t = -2.310, P = 0.033). There was no difference between the levels in HCC and normal liver tissues (P more than 0.05). Higher level of CysLT1R mRNA, higher level of serum alpha-fetoprotein, and higher tumor stage (III-IV) were associated with poor prognosis (respectively 4.372, P = 0.037; 24.187, P = 0.000; 8.75, P = 0.003). However, no evident relationship between the expression of CysLT1R and other clinical features was observed. Conclusions Overexpression of CysLT1R may contribute to the occurrence and progression of HCC.</p>