Pro-Oxidant Drug-Loaded Au/ZnO Hybrid Nanoparticles for Cancer-Specific Chemo-Photodynamic Combination Therapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a noninvasive therapeutic strategy involving photosensitizers and external light for the selective destruction of target tumors. Chemo-photodynamic combination therapy has attracted widespread attention to improve the outcome of cancer treatment by PDT only. In this study, light-triggered reactive oxygen species (ROS)-generating, polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated zinc oxide nanorods (PEG-ZnO NRs) were synthesized and complexed with pro-oxidant piperlongumine (PL) to achieve cancer-targeted chemo-photodynamic combination therapy.

Selective Anticancer Therapy Using Pro-Oxidant Drug-Loaded Chitosan-Fucoidan Nanoparticles.

Pro-oxidant therapy exploiting pro-oxidant drugs that can trigger cytotoxic oxidative stress in cancer cells has emerged as an innovative strategy for cancer-specific therapy. Piperlongumine (PL) has gained great interest as a novel pro-oxidant agent, because it has an ability to trigger cancer-specific apoptosis through the increase of oxidative stress in cancer cells. However, the use of PL is limited in the clinic because of its hydrophobic nature.

Fabrication of dual stimuli-responsive multicompartmental drug carriers for tumor-selective drug release.

There has been increasing attention to the development of multi-stimuli-responsive drug carriers for precisely controlled drug release at target disease areas. In this study, pH- and redox-responsive hybrid drug carriers were fabricated by using both ketal-based acid-cleavable precursors and disulfide-based reducible precursors via stop-flow lithography. pH- and redox-sensitive drug release of the dual stimuli-responsive hybrid particles was confirmed, demonstrating their feasibility for selective and efficient drug release into tumor tissues in acidic and highly reductive environments.

Targeted and effective photodynamic therapy for cancer using functionalized nanomaterials.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an emerging, non-invasive therapeutic strategy that involves photosensitizer (PS) drugs and external light for the treatment of diseases. Despite the great progress in PS-mediated PDT, their clinical applications are still hampered by poor water solubility and tissue/cell specificity of conventional PS drugs. Therefore, great efforts have been made towards the development of nanomaterials that can tackle fundamental challenges in conventional PS drug-mediated PDT for cancer treatment.

Microfluidic Synthesis of pH-Sensitive Multicompartmental Microparticles for Multimodulated Drug Release.

Stimuli-responsive carriers releasing multiple drugs have been researched for synergistic combinatorial cancer treatment with reduced side-effects. However, previously used drug carriers have limitations in encapsulating multiple drug components in a single carrier and releasing each drug independently. In this work, pH-sensitive, multimodulated, anisotropic drug carrier particles are synthesized using an acid-cleavable polymer and stop-flow lithography.