Cinnamaldehyde-modified chitosan hybrid nanoparticles for DOX delivering to produce synergistic anti-tumor effects.

Cancer cells are under oxidative stress associated with the increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Therefore, increasing the oxidative stress of tumor cells by delivering ROS generators is an effective strategy to induce apoptosis of cancer cells. Herein, we reported a hybrid nanoparticle based on lactobionic acid (LA) modified chitosan and cinnamaldehyde (CA) modified chitosan, which possesses both active tumor-targeting ability and ROS regulation ability, in order to have a synergistic effect with the anti-tumor drug doxorubicin (DOX). LA can improve the tumor-targeting ability and cellular accumulation of these nanoparticles, and CA can induce apoptotic cell death through ROS generation, mitochondrial permeability transition and caspase activation. The particle size and distribution as well as drug release profiles of these nanoparticles were observed. In vitro and in vivo antitumor studies demonstrated that the hybrid nanoparticles show a significant synergistic antitumor effect. Thus, we anticipate that the hybrid nanoparticles have promising potential as an anticancer drug carrier.

Ethanol and KOH co-pretreatment towards ultra-high specific surface area carbons for high-rate and high-energy supercapacitors.

A new avenue for fabricating ultra-high specific surface area (SSA) carbons with hierarchical porous and excellent energy storage ability is achieved from the biomass-waste of pitaya peel with the pre-treating process by ethanol and KOH to optimize the microstructure and porosity, displaying excellent supercapacitance in different electrolytes.

Synthesis of carbon-dots@SiO2@TiO2 nanoplatform for photothermal imaging induced multimodal synergistic antitumor.

For facilitating theranostic nanoplatform with multimodal therapeutic ability, we develop the core-shell structured CDs@SiO2@TiO2 nanoplatforms (CST NPs). The designed CST NPs possess excellent photothermal effect and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) induced photodynamic property, which could achieve synergistic photothermal and photodynamic therapy. Meanwhile, the photothermal ability of CST NPs acts as a key role in the application of real-time photothermal imaging, benefitting for the diagnosis of tumor accurately. Moreover, the obtained CST NPs also exhibit outstanding sonodynamic effect with huge potential for sonodynamic therapy. Under the 650 nm laser irradiation, the synthesized CST NPs not only inhibit the growth of cancer cells in vitro, but also display precise photothermal imaging and photo-induced ablation to tumor in vivo. As a result, the prepared CST NPs may potentially serve as multifunctional nanoplatform for theranostic antitumor and pave the avenue for clinic cancer therapy.