Engineering Functional Particles to Modulate T Cell Responses.

T cells play a critical role in adaptive immune responses. They work with other immune cells such as B cells to protect our bodies when the first line of defense, the innate immune system, is overcome by certain infectious diseases or cancers. Studying and regulating the responses of T cells, such as activation, proliferation, and differentiation, helps us understand not only their behavior but also their translation and application in the field of immunotherapy, such as adoptive T cell therapy and immune checkpoint therapy, the situations in which T cells cannot fight cancer alone and require external engineering regulation to help them.

Urease-powered nanobots for radionuclide bladder cancer therapy.

Bladder cancer treatment via intravesical drug administration achieves reasonable survival rates but suffers from low therapeutic efficacy. To address the latter, self-propelled nanoparticles or nanobots have been proposed, taking advantage of their enhanced diffusion and mixing capabilities in urine when compared with conventional drugs or passive nanoparticles. However, the translational capabilities of nanobots in treating bladder cancer are underexplored.

Swarms of Enzyme-Powered Nanomotors Enhance the Diffusion of Macromolecules in Viscous Media.

Over the past decades, the development of nanoparticles (NPs) to increase the efficiency of clinical treatments has been subject of intense research. Yet, most NPs have been reported to possess low efficacy as their actuation is hindered by biological barriers. For instance, synovial fluid (SF) present in the joints is mainly composed of hyaluronic acid (HA).

Unveiling protein corona formation around self-propelled enzyme nanomotors by nanoscopy.

The interaction of nanoparticles with biological media is a topic of general interest for drug delivery systems and among those for active nanoparticles, also called nanomotors. Herein, we report the use of super resolution microscopy, in particular, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), to characterize the formation of a protein corona around active enzyme-powered nanomotors. First, we characterized the distribution and number of enzymes on nano-sized particles and characterized their motion capabilities.