小分子基温敏聚合物纳米粒子的制备及在近红外二区荧光成像与光热治疗中的应用

以有机小分子4,9-二(5-9H-芴-2-基-噻吩-2-基)-6',7-联苯[1,2,5]噻二唑并[3,4-g]喹喔啉(TQF)为前驱体, 通过化学方法将其修饰为可引发可逆加成-断裂链转移聚合(RAFT)反应的小分子链转移剂TQF-苯基硫代链 转移剂（CTA）. 以TQF-CTA为链转移剂, 以偶氮二异丁腈为引发剂, 引发N-异丙基丙烯酰胺(NIPAAm)和 甲基丙烯酸寡聚乙二醇酯(OEGMA)发生RAFT聚合反应, 合成了具有良好水溶性和较低临界溶解温度(LCST)的小分子基共聚物[TQF-P(NIPAAm-co-OEGMA), TPNO]. 将其直接溶于水中可制备成温敏的球形纳米粒子 TPNO NPs. 研究结果表明, TPNO NPs在温度大于LCST(35 ℃)时表现出一个明显的粒径变化和显著的荧光 增强行为(2.2倍), 并成功实现了对活体小鼠血管与肿瘤的明亮近红外二区(NIR-Ⅱ)荧光成像(FI). 同时, TPNO NPs有着良好的光热转换效率(PCE=29.8%), 通过体外细胞实验证明了其对细胞具有较好的光热治疗(PTT)效果.     

硫代部花菁类染料生物成像及诊疗的研究进展

硫代部花菁是氮杂环阳离子和末端氨基、 羟基或烷氧基通过π共轭桥连在一起的一类荧光染料, 具有优异的光学性质和生物相容性, 其近红外发射优势以及光敏特性使以硫代部花菁为骨架的荧光探针和诊疗试剂在荧光/光声成像和肿瘤治疗方面发挥着重要作用. 本文综合评述了基于硫代部花菁构建的荧光探针和诊疗分子在识别各种生命或环境分析物以及光基疗法中的研究及应用, 讨论了该领域面临的问题, 并对未来的发展趋势进行了展望.     

近红外二区活体荧光成像在肿瘤诊疗中的应用

由于具备组织穿透深度深和时空分辨率高等优势, 近年来近红外二区(Near-infrared-Ⅱ, NIR-Ⅱ, 1000~1700 nm)荧光成像技术得到了快速发展, 其在肿瘤临床诊断和治疗的潜力更是引发了广泛关注. 本文首先阐释了NIR-Ⅱ窗口荧光成像的原理及其优势, 随后根据结构分类归纳总结了现有荧光团的特征, 重点介绍了荧光探针在性能优化上的进展以及在肿瘤早期检测、 术中导航和光疗中的应用, 最后讨论了现有NIR-Ⅱ 荧光探针的局限以及临床转化面临的挑战, 并对未来的发展方向进行了展望.     

基于框架核酸的细胞表面受体配体相互作用研究进展

细胞表面受体与配体之间的特异性相互作用在细胞生物学过程中起着重要作用。然而,与均相溶液不同,受体分子在细胞膜上的分布是非连续的、动态的,因此细胞表面的受体配体相互作用通常呈现复杂的非线性结合模式。框架核酸作为一类具有确定几何形状的DNA纳米支架,可用于多价配体的偶联,为深入揭示受体配体相互作用机制提供了可靠的工具。利用框架核酸纳米分辨率的可寻址特性,可实现对配体数目、间距及空间构象等参数的精确调控,进而研究细胞表面受体配体的结合特性及影响因素,优化结合条件最终实现高效的分子识别及靶向治疗。本文综述了基于框架核酸的细胞表面受体配体相互作用研究进展,通过探讨细胞表面受体配体相互作用的重要影响因素及生物学应用,对该研究领域的发展前景和未来趋势予以展望。     

Poly(ethylene glycol)‐crosslinked fullerenes for high efficient phototherapy

Poly(ethylene glycol)‐crosslinked multimeric C₆₀ was developed for use in photothermal/photodynamic therapy of malignant cells. We showed that: (i) the tumor surface temperature on KB tumor‐bearing nude mice treated with multimeric C₆₀ reached about 44 °C; (ii) this hyperthermic condition and tremendous singlet oxygen generation from multimeric C₆₀ resulted in significant tumor volume regression in KB tumor‐bearing nude mice; and (iii) multimeric C₆₀ also efficiently inhibited arthritic progress in the arthritis‐induced DBA/1 J mice model. This multimeric C₆₀ may be useful for photothermal/photodynamic cell ablation in various malignant cells. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Studies of proteasome inhibition and apoptosis induction in triple‐negative breast cancer cells by novel amino acid–polypyridine–copper complex

An innovative ternary copper(II) complex, [Cu(Cl‐PIP)(Tyr)Cl]_n, has been synthesized and characterized using infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis and single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction analysis. X‐ray crystallography indicates that the Cu atom is five‐coordinated in a square‐pyramidal configuration. The unit forms a one‐dimensional chain along the crystallographic c‐axis. The complex was screened for cytotoxicity against a panel of eight human cancer cell lines, namely MDA‐MB‐231, CAL‐51, K562, HeLa, SGC‐7901, A549, MCF‐7 and SMMC‐7721. The best anticancer activity was obtained with triple‐negative breast cancer CAL‐51 and MDA‐MB‐231 cell lines, with IC₅₀ values in the range 0.035–0.10 μM, and this was better than using carboplatin. The complex inhibits proteasomal chymotrypsin‐like activity, and docking studies reveal its interaction with 20S proteasome. In addition, the complex causes accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins, induces apoptosis and inhibits cell proliferation, indicating its great potential as a novel therapy for triple‐negative breast cancer.     

Synthesis of Cationic Dumbbell-shaped Fullerene Nanostructures as Potential Photodynamic Sensitizers

A design of novel hydrophilic tetracationic dumbbell-shaped [60]fullerene nanostructures was made by balancing the hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity characteristics of the fullerene adduct for their potential application as photodynamic sensitizers in the PDT treatment. A sequential protection-deprotection reaction pathway was applied for the functional differentiation between primary and secondary amine moieties of pentaethylene hexamine. Synthesis of the target molecule involves two key steps of unsymmetrical esterification and amidation of malonic acid and subsequent fullerenation. The synthetic strategy was accomplished using mild reaction conditions in the intermediate molecule preparation and led a moderate overall product yield.     

Comparison of phantom materials for use in quality assurance of microbeam radiation therapy

Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) is a promising radiotherapy modality that uses arrays of spatially fractionated micrometre‐sized beams of synchrotron radiation to irradiate tumours. Routine dosimetry quality assurance (QA) prior to treatment is necessary to identify any changes in beam condition from the treatment plan, and is undertaken using solid homogeneous phantoms. Solid phantoms are designed for, and routinely used in, megavoltage X‐ray beam radiation therapy. These solid phantoms are not necessarily designed to be water‐equivalent at low X‐ray energies, and therefore may not be suitable for MRT QA. This work quantitatively determines the most appropriate solid phantom to use in dosimetric MRT QA. Simulated dose profiles of various phantom materials were compared with those calculated in water under the same conditions. The phantoms under consideration were RMI457 Solid Water (Gammex‐RMI, Middleton, WI, USA), Plastic Water (CIRS, Norfolk, VA, USA), Plastic Water DT (CIRS, Norfolk, VA, USA), PAGAT (CIRS, Norfolk, VA, USA), RW3 Solid Phantom (PTW Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany), PMMA, Virtual Water (Med‐Cal, Verona, WI, USA) and Perspex. RMI457 Solid Water and Virtual Water were found to be the best approximations for water in MRT dosimetry (within ±3% deviation in peak and 6% in valley). RW3 and Plastic Water DT approximate the relative dose distribution in water (within ±3% deviation in the peak and 5% in the valley). PAGAT, PMMA, Perspex and Plastic Water are not recommended to be used as phantoms for MRT QA, due to dosimetric discrepancies greater than 5%.     

Infrared Responsive Choline Phosphate Lipids for Synergistic Cancer Therapy

Choline phosphate lipids have been designed and developed as new-generation zwitterionic nanocarriers with excellent biocompatibility and bioorthogonality to provide a more programmable performance for cancer therapy. However, there is a lack of spatiotemporal and reversible control for drug release at target tumor cells, which can lead to severe adverse effects to normal tissue and discounted treatment outcome. Here, light-inducible Lip-cRGDfk/ICG/Dox liposomes were developed for synergistic cancer therapy. ICG can effectively convert light energy into selective heating in a local environment upon laser irradiation, thus inducing thermal ablation of tumor cells, and further reversibly trigger the spatiotemporal release of anticancer drugs (Dox) at tumor cells due to the conformation transformation of CP lipids to synergistically kill tumor cells. That Lip-cRGDfk/ICG/Dox exhibited a significant improvement for breast cancer therapy in vitro and in vivo is also demonstrated, thus it can serve as an efficient platform to noninvasively and spatiotemporally control the activation of cytotoxicity at tumor cells for precision cancer therapy.     

Structure-Based Design,Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation of Hsp90β-Selective Inhibitors

The 90 kDa heat shock proteins (Hsp90) are molecular chaperones that are responsible for the folding and/or trafficking of ∼400 client proteins, many of which are directly associated with cancer progression. Consequently, inhibition of Hsp90 can exhibit similar activity as combination therapy as multiple signaling nodes can be targeted simultaneously. In fact, seventeen small-molecule inhibitors that bind the Hsp90 N-terminus entered clinical trials for the treatment of cancer, all of which exhibited pan-inhibitory activity against all four Hsp90 isoforms. Unfortunately, most demonstrated undesired effects alongside induction of the pro-survival heat shock response. As a result, isoform-selective inhibitors have been sought to overcome these detriments. Described herein is a structure-based approach to design Hsp90β-selective inhibitors along with preliminary SAR. In the end, compound 5 was shown to manifest ∼370-fold selectivity for Hsp90β versus Hsp90α, and induced the degradation of select Hsp90β-dependent clients. These data support the development of Hsp90β-selective inhibitors as a new paradigm to overcome the detriments associated with pan-inhibition of Hsp90.