The past decades have witnessed hyperthermia therapy (HTT) as an emerging strategy against malignant tumors. Nanomaterial‐based photothermal therapy (PTT) and magnetic hyperthermia (MHT), as highly ...effective and noninvasive treatment models, offer advantages over other strategies in the treatment of different types of tumors. However, both PTT and MHT cannot completely cure cancer due to recurrence and distal metastasis. In recent years, cancer immunotherapy has attracted widespread attention owing to its capability to activate the body's own natural defense to identify, attack, and eradicate cancer cells. Significant efforts have been devoted to studying the activated immune responses caused by hyperthermia‐ablated tumors. In this article, the synergistic mechanism of HTT in immunotherapy, including immunogenic cell death and reversal of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment is discussed. The reports of the combination of HTT or HTT‐based multimodal therapy with immunotherapy, including immunoadjuvant exploitation, immune checkpoint blockade therapy, and adoptive cellular immunotherapy are summarized. As highlighted, these strategies could achieve synergistically enhanced therapeutic outcomes against both primary tumors and metastatic lesions, prevent cancer recurrence, and prolong the survival period. Finally, current challenges and prospective developments in HTT‐synergized immunotherapy are also reviewed.
Nanomaterial‐based hyperthermia therapy (HTT) including photothermal therapy and magnetic hyperthermia can not only ablate different types of primary tumors, but also sensitize tumors to create a highly immunogenic tumor microenvironment for immunotherapy to further fight against cancer metastasis and recurrence. Hence, such an HTT‐synergized immunotherapy approach offers a powerful method for curing cancer completely.
808 nm‐light‐excited lanthanide (Ln3+)‐doped nanoparticles (LnNPs) hold great promise for a wide range of applications, including bioimaging diagnosis and anticancer therapy. This is due to their ...unique properties, including their minimized overheating effect, improved penetration depth, relatively high quantum yields, and other common features of LnNPs. In this review, the progress of 808 nm‐excited LnNPs is reported, including their i) luminescence mechanism, ii) luminescence enhancement, iii) color tuning, iv) diagnostic and v) therapeutic applications. Finally, the future outlook and challenges of 808 nm‐excited LnNPs are presented.
808‐nm‐excited lanthanide (Ln3+)‐doped nanoparticles (LnNPs) hold great promise for a wide range of applications, spanning from bioimaging diagnosis to anticancer therapy. In this review, we present a comprehensive evaluation of the luminescence mechanism, luminescence enhancement, color tuning, and theranostic applications of 808‐nm‐excited LnNPs for the first time.
Organic/inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskites are promising optoelectronic materials due to their unique structure, excellent properties, and fascinating potential applications in lighting, ...photovoltaic, etc. However, perovskite materials are very sensitive to moisture and polar solvent, which greatly hinders their practical applications. Here, highly luminescent perovskite–polystyrene composite beads with uniform morphology are prepared via a simple swelling–shrinking strategy. This process is carried out only in nonpolar toluene and hexane without the addition of any polar reagents. As a result, the as‐prepared composite beads not only retain high luminescence but also exhibit superior water‐resistant property. The composites emit strong luminescence after being immersed into water over nine months. Moreover, even in some harsh environments such as acid/alkali aqueous solution, phosphate buffer solution, and Dulbecco's modified eagle medium biological buffers, they still preserve high luminescence. The applications in light‐emitting diodes and cellular labeling agents are also carried out to demonstrate their ultrastability.
Highly luminescent perovskite–polystyrene composite beads with uniform morphology are prepared by packing perovskite quantum dots in crosslinked polystyrene beads via swelling in toluene and then shrinking the beads in hexane. The composite not only retains high luminescence but also exhibits superior water resistance.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising antitumor treatment that is based on the photosensitizers that inhibit cancer cells by yielding reactive oxygen species (ROS) after irradiation of light with ...specific wavelengths. As a potential photosensitizer, titanium dioxide (TiO2) exhibits minimal dark cytotoxicity and excellent ultraviolet (UV) light triggered cytotoxicity, but is challenged by the limited tissue penetration of UV light. Herein, a novel near-infrared (NIR) light activated photosensitizer for PDT based on TiO2-coated upconversion nanoparticle (UCNP) core/shell nanocomposites (UCNPs@TiO2 NCs) is designed. NaYF4:Yb3+,Tm3+@NaGdF4:Yb3+ core/shell UCNPs can efficiently convert NIR light to UV emission that matches well with the absorption of TiO2 shells. The UCNPs@TiO2 NCs endocytosed by cancer cells are able to generate intracellular ROS under NIR irradiation, decreasing the mitochondrial membrane potential to release cytochrome c into the cytosol and then activating caspase 3 to induce cancer cell apoptosis. NIR light triggered PDT of tumor-bearing mice with UCNPs@TiO2 as photosensitizers can suppress tumor growth efficiently due to the better tissue penetration than UV irradiation. On the basis of the evidence of in vitro and in vivo results, UCNPs@TiO2 NCs could serve as an effective photosensitizer for NIR light mediated PDT in antitumor therapy.
Controlling anticancer drug activity and release on demand is very significant in cancer therapy. The photoactivated platinum(IV) pro-drug is stable in the dark and can be activated by UV light. In ...this study, we develop a multifunctional drug delivery system combining upconversion luminescence/magnetic resonance/computer tomography trimodality imaging and NIR-activated platinum pro-drug delivery. We use the core–shell structured upconversion nanoparticles to convert the absorbed NIR light into UV to activate the trans-platinum(IV) pro-drug, trans,trans,trans-Pt(N3)2(NH3)(py)(O2CCH2CH2COOH)2. Compared with using the UV directly, the NIR has a higher tissue penetration depth and is less harmful to health. Meanwhile, the upconversion nanoparticles can effectively deliver the platinum(IV) pro-drugs into the cells by endocytosis. The mice treated with pro-drug-conjugated nanoparticles under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation demonstrated better inhibition of tumor growth than that under direct UV irradiation. This multifunctional nanocomposite could be used as multimodality bioimaging contrast agents and transducers by converting NIR light into UV for control of drug activity in practical cancer therapy.
This paper discusses lanthanide doped luminescent materials which can modify the solar spectrum to reduce the spectral losses encountered by PV (photovoltaic) devices and enhance the conversion ...efficiency. High cost owing to low conversion efficiency is a limiting factor for contribution of PV devices. Thermalization, recombination, and transmission, resulted from spectral mismatch are three major losses. Many efforts have been made on spectral modification to circumvent these losses. Spectral modification is to modify the incident photons to appropriate energy by upconversion, downconversion or downshifting to better match with the bandgap of semiconductors. Recently, many lanthanide doped spectral modifiers in variety of hosts have been prepared and used to reduce the spectral losses. These materials will be discussed in this paper and the challenges of development and application of such materials is presented as well.
•Spectrum modification for efficiency enhancement of solar cells is reviewed.•Downshifting, downconversion and upconversion are three modifying processes, whose fundamental theories are discussed.•Development of materials for enhancing efficiency of solar cells is presented.•Outlook for lanthanide-doped spectrum-converter is presented.
In this study, we report a new controlled release system based on up-conversion luminescent microspheres of NaYF4:Yb3+/Er3+ coated with the smart hydrogel poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-(methacrylic ...acid) (P(NIPAM-co-MAA)) (prepared using 5 mol % of MAA) shell. The hybrid microspheres show bright up-conversion fluorescence under 980 nm laser excitation, and turbidity measurements show that the low critical solution temperature of the polymer shell is thermo- and pH-dependent. We have exploited the hybrid microspheres as carriers for Doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) due to its stimuli-responsive property as well as good biocompatibility via MTT assay. It is found that the drug release behavior is pH-triggered thermally sensitive. Changing the pH to mildly acidic condition at physiological temperature deforms the structure of the shell, causing the release of a large number of DOX from the microspheres. The drug-loaded microspheres exhibit an obvious cytotoxic effect on SKOV3 ovarian cancer cells. The endocytosis process of drug-loaded microspheres is observed using confocal laser scanning microscopy and up-conversion luminescence microscopy. Meanwhile, the as-prepared NaYF4:Yb3+/Er3+@SiO2@P(NIPAM-co-MAA) microspheres can be used as a luminescent probe for cell imaging. In addition, the extent of drug release can be monitored by the change of up-conversion emission intensity. These pH-induced thermally controlled drug release systems have potential to be used for in vivo bioimaging and cancer therapy by the pH of the microenvironment changing from 7.4 (normal physiological environment) to acidic microenvironments (such as endosome and lysosome compartments) owing to endocytosis.
Abstract Multifunctional strontium hydroxyapatite (SrHAp) nanorods with luminescent and mesoporous properties have been successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method. SEM and TEM images indicate ...that the mesoporous SrHAp samples consist of monodiperse nanorods with lengths of 120–150 nm, diameters of around 20 nm, and the mesopore size of 3–5 nm. The as-obtained SrHAp nanorods show an intense bright blue emission (centered at 432 nm, lifetime 11.6 ns, quantum efficiency: 22%), which might arise from CO2 ·− radical impurities in the crystal lattice under long-wavelength UV-light irradiation. Furthermore, the amount of trisodium citrate has an obvious impact on the particle size and the luminescence properties of the products, respectively. The drug storage/release test indicates that the luminescent SrHAp nanorods show a drug loading and controlled release properties for ibuprofen (IBU). Additionally, the emission intensity of SrHAp in the drug carrier system increases with the cumulative released amount of IBU, making the drug release might be easily tracked and monitored by the change of the luminescence intensity. This luminescent material may be potentially applied in the drug delivery and disease therapy fields.
The near-infrared (NIR) region (700-1100 nm) is the so-called transparency "therapeutic window" for biological applications owing to its deeper tissue penetration and minimal damage to healthy ...tissues. In recent years, various NIR-based therapeutic and interventional strategies, such as NIR-triggered drug delivery, photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT), are under research in intensive preclinical and clinical investigations for cancer treatment. The NIR control in these cancer therapy systems is considered crucial to boost local effective tumor suppression while minimizing side effects, resulting in improved therapeutic efficacy. Some researchers even predict the NIR-triggered cancer therapy to be a new and exciting possibility for clinical nanomedicine applications. In this review, the rapid development of NIR light-responsive cancer therapy based on various smartly designed nanocomposites for deep tumor treatments is introduced. In detail, the use of NIR-sensitive materials for chemotherapy, PTT as well as PDT is highlighted, and the associated challenges and potential solutions are discussed. The applications of NIR-sensitive cancer therapy modalities summarized here can highlight their potential use as promising nanoagents for deep tumor therapy.
Near-infrared region is a so-called transparency "therapeutic window" for biological applications. In this review, the rapid developments of NIR light-responsive cancer therapy systems for deep tumor treatment are introduced.
Up‐conversion (UC) luminescent porous silica fibers decorated with NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+ nanocrystals (NCs) (denoted as NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+@silica fiber) are prepared by the electrospinning process using ...cationic surfactant P123 as a template. Monodisperse and hydrophobic oleic acid capped β‐NaYF4: Yb3+, Er3+ NCs are prepared by thermal decomposition methodology. Then, these NCs are transferred into aqueous solution by employing cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as secondary surfactant. The water‐dispersible β‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+ NCs are dispersed into precursor electrospinning solution containing P123 and tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), followed by preparation of precursor fibers via electrospinning. Finally, porous α‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+@silica fiber nanocomposites are obtained after annealing the precursor fibers containing β‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+ at 550 °C. The as‐prepared α‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+@silica fiber possesses porous structure and UC luminescence properties simultaneously. Furthermore, the obtained nanocomposites can be used as a drug delivery host carrier and drug storage/release properties are investigated, using ibuprofen (IBU) as a model drug. The results indicate that the IBU–loaded α‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+@silica fiber nanocomposites show UC emission of Er3+ under 980 nm NIR laser excitation and a controlled release property for IBU. Meanwhile, the UC emission intensity of IBU–α‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+@silica fiber system varies with the released amount of IBU.
Electrospinning derived α‐NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+ decorated silica fibers, which combine porous structure and red up‐conversion luminescence, can be used as a drug‐delivery vehicle. The IBU‐loaded silica fiber system shows a controlled release property for IBU. In addition, the up‐conversion emission intensities of the drug carrier system vary with the amount of IBU released.
