Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs), one of the important porous materials, have garnered interest owing to their highly attractive physicochemical features and advantageous morphological ...attributes. They are of particular importance for use in diverse fields including, but not limited to, adsorption, catalysis, and medicine. Despite their intrinsic stable siliceous frameworks, excellent mechanical strength, and optimal morphological attributes, pristine MSNs suffer from poor drug loading efficiency, as well as compatibility and degradability issues for therapeutic, diagnostic, and tissue engineering purposes. Collectively, the desirable and beneficial properties of MSNs have been harnessed by modifying the surface of the siliceous frameworks through incorporating supramolecular assemblies and various metal species, and through incorporating supramolecular assemblies and various metal species and their conjugates. Substantial advancements of these innovative colloidal inorganic nanocontainers drive researchers in promoting them toward innovative applications like stimuli (light/ultrasound/magnetic)‐responsive delivery‐associated therapies with exceptional performance in vivo. Here, a brief overview of the fabrication of siliceous frameworks, along with discussions on the significant advances in engineering of MSNs, is provided. The scope of the advancement in terms of structural and physicochemical attributes and their effects on biomedical applications with a particular focus on recent studies is emphasized. Finally, interesting perspectives are recapitulated, along with the scope toward clinical translation.
Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have garnered enormous interest owing to their highly advantageous physicochemical and morphological attributes. Collectively, progression has been made by modifying the surface of the siliceous frameworks through incorporating diverse supramolecular assemblies. An overview of the fabrication of MSNs and discussions on significant advances in engineering of MSNs, along with their scope toward clinical translation, is provided.
Microscale cell carriers have recently garnered enormous interest in repairing tissue defects by avoiding substantial open surgeries using implants for tissue regeneration. In this study, the highly ...open porous microspheres (HOPMs) are fabricated using a microfluidic technique for harboring proliferating skeletal myoblasts and evaluating their feasibility toward cell delivery application in situ. These biocompatible HOPMs with particle sizes of 280–370 µm possess open pores of 10–80 µm and interconnected paths. Such structure of the HOPMs conveniently provide a favorable microenvironment, where the cells are closely arranged in elongated shapes with the deposited extracellular matrix, facilitating cell adhesion and proliferation, as well as augmented myogenic differentiation. Furthermore, in vivo results in mice confirm improved cell retention and vascularization, as well as partial myoblast differentiation. These modular cell‐laden microcarriers potentially allow for in situ tissue construction after minimally invasive delivery providing a convenient means for regeneration medicine.
Highly open porous microspheres (HOPMs) are conveniently designed using a microfluidic setup and evaluated for their feasibility toward minimally invasive cell delivery‐based tissue regeneration. These biocompatible HOPMs with interconnected paths facilitate a high cell proliferation rate, and partial differentiation of skeletal myoblasts. These modular cells‐laden microcarriers provide a convenient means for in situ repair of tissue defects and applications in regenerative medicine.
Despite their advantageous morphological attributes and attractive physicochemical properties, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are merely supported as carriers or vectors for a reason. ...Incorporating various metal species in the confined nanospaces of MSNs (M‐MSNs) significantly enriches their mesoporous architecture and diverse functionalities, bringing exciting potentials to this burgeoning field of research. These incorporated guest species offer enormous benefits to the MSN hosts concerning the reduction of their eventual size and the enhancement of their performance and stability, among other benefits. Substantially, the guest species act through contributing to reduced aggregation, augmented durability, ease of long‐term storage, and reduced toxicity, attributes that are of particular interest in diverse fields of biomedicine. In this review, the first aim is to discuss the current advancements and latest breakthroughs in the fabrication of M‐MSNs, emphasizing the pros and cons, the confinement of various metal species in the nanospaces of MSNs, and various factors influencing the encapsulation of metal species in MSNs. Further, an emphasis on potential applications of M‐MSNs in various fields, including in adsorption, catalysis, photoluminescence, and biomedicine, among others, along with a set of examples is provided. Finally, the advances in M‐MSNs with perspectives are summarized.
Despite their captivating physicochemical properties, mesoporous silica nanoparticles are only supported as carriers. To enrich their performance, various metal species are encapsulated in their nanospaces for diverse functionalities. This review provides an overview highlighting the attractive features of these innovative constructs and a synopsis of the current advancements and latest breakthroughs in their potential catalytic and various biomedical applications.
With advantageous features such as minimizing the cost, time, and sample size requirements, organ-on-a-chip (OOC) systems have garnered enormous interest from researchers for their ability for ...real-time monitoring of physical parameters by mimicking the in vivo microenvironment and the precise responses of xenobiotics, i.e., drug efficacy and toxicity over conventional two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures, as well as animal models. Recent advancements of OOC systems have evidenced the fabrication of 'multi-organ-on-chip' (MOC) models, which connect separated organ chambers together to resemble an ideal pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) model for monitoring the complex interactions between multiple organs and the resultant dynamic responses of multiple organs to pharmaceutical compounds. Numerous varieties of MOC systems have been proposed, mainly focusing on the construction of these multi-organ models, while there are only few studies on how to realize continual, automated, and stable testing, which still remains a significant challenge in the development process of MOCs. Herein, this review emphasizes the recent advancements in realizing long-term testing of MOCs to promote their capability for real-time monitoring of multi-organ interactions and chronic cellular reactions more accurately and steadily over the available chip models. Efforts in this field are still ongoing for better performance in the assessment of preclinical attributes for a new chemical entity. Further, we give a brief overview on the various biomedical applications of long-term testing in MOCs, including several proposed applications and their potential utilization in the future. Finally, we summarize with perspectives.
Metal oxides with diverse compositions and structures have garnered considerable interest from researchers in various reactions, which benefits from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in ...determining their morphologies, phase, structural and chemical information. Recent breakthroughs have made liquid‐phase TEM a promising imaging platform for tracking the dynamic structure, morphology, and composition evolution of metal oxides in solution under work conditions. Herein, this review introduces the recent advances in liquid cells, especially closed liquid cell chips. Subsequently, the recent progress including particle growth, phase transformation, self‐assembly, core–shell nanostructure growth, and chemical etching are introduced. With the late technical advances in TEM and liquid cells, liquid‐phase TEM is used to characterize many fundamental processes of metal oxides for CO2 reduction and water‐splitting reactions. Finally, the outlook and challenges in this research field are discussed. It is believed this compilation inspires and stimulates more efforts in developing and utilizing in situ liquid‐phase TEM for metal oxides at the atomic scale for different applications.
The recent progress including particle growth, phase transformation, self‐assembly, core–shell nanostructure growth, and chemical etching. With the late technical advances in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and liquid cells, liquid‐phase TEM is used to characterize many fundamental processes of metal oxides for CO2 reduction and water‐splitting reactions.
This article demonstrates the fabrication of versatile nanoformulation by conveniently wrapping the ultrasmall platinum nanoparticles-dispersed over the zinc metal species-doped mesoporous ...silica-based nanocarriers (Zn-MSNs). Such innovative nanocarriers not only convey the drug cargo efficiently but also facilitate the advanced abilities of deep tumor penetration through interacting with adherens junctions and aphotic (dark) synergistic therapeutic effects to combat cancer multidrug resistance.
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•Ultrasmall Pt-NPs were wrapped over metal-doped MSNs to combat cancer MDR.•Pt-NPs facilitated advanced abilities of deep tumor penetration and aphotic synergistic effects.•Pt-NPs have shown significant effect on integrity of adherens junctions between cells.•Zn species offered pH-responsive coordination with Dox enabling its precise release.•ROS from Dox enabled the conversion to Pt ions, resulting in synergistic tumor ablation.
Despite the significant advancements in the development of a wide-variety of nanocarriers-based delivery systems for cancer therapy, several predominant issues remain unaddressed such as active combat of cancer multidrug resistance (MDR) and the limited penetration efficacy of the delivery systems. To address these issues, herein, we demonstrate the fabrication of a versatile nanoformulation by conveniently wrapping the ultrasmall platinum (Pt) nanoparticles-dispersed chitosan (CS) over the zinc-doped mesoporous silica nanocarriers (Zn-MSNs) through a facile, yet efficient self-assembly approach. These versatile nanocomposites decorated with highly active, ultrasmall Pt nanoparticles potentially facilitate the advanced therapeutic abilities of deep tumor penetration and aphotic (dark) synergistic ablation of the MDR tumors effectively. In this framework, pericellular actin staining results confirmed the effect of decorated Pt species on the integrity of the adherens junctions between cells. Remarkably, the Zn species that are doped in the siliceous frameworks substantially enhanced the loading efficiency of doxorubicin (Dox) molecules without any additional functionalization and facilitated the augmented anticancer efficacy by delivering them precisely in the tumor’s acidic microenvironment through specifically dismantling the established coordination interactions between the host and guest species. Further, the resultant free radical species from the delivered Dox species intracellularly enabled the catalytic conversion of the Pt nanoparticles to their corresponding divalent ionic species, which synergistically participated in the tumor ablation. These consequences of Pt species toward synergistic ablation of MDR cells happened to be favourable only in the presence of Dox species, a free radical generator. In vitro and in vivo investigations confirm augmented antiproliferation and synergistic inhibition effects of designed nanocomposites in the MDR tumors. These nanocomposites decorated with highly active Pt nanoparticles potentially allow for deep tumor penetration and synergistic ablation of the tumor by conveniently combating the MDR efficaciously.
During the past few decades, supercritical fluid (SCF) has emerged as an effective alternative for many traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. Operating active pharmaceutical ingredients ...(APIs) alone or in combination with various biodegradable polymeric carriers in high‐pressure conditions provides enhanced features with respect to their physical properties such as bioavailability enhancement, is of relevance to the application of SCF in the pharmaceutical industry. Herein, recent advances in drug delivery systems manufactured using the SCF technology are reviewed. We provide a brief description of the history, principle, and various preparation methods involved in the SCF technology. Next, we aim to give a brief overview, which provides an emphasis and discussion of recent reports using supercritical carbon dioxide (SC‐CO2) for fabrication of polymeric carriers, for applications in areas related to drug delivery, tissue engineering, bio‐imaging, and other biomedical applications. We finally summarize with perspectives.
The supercritical carbon dioxide technology utilizes carbon dioxide in its supercritical state as it is non‐toxic, cost‐effective, and environmental‐friendly. This green technology produces polymeric carriers in various forms by altering critical conditions such as temperature and pressure during the fabrication process. We provide an overview of the history, principle, and preparation methods involving this versatile technology and its use in fabrication of polymeric carriers for applications in drug delivery and related biomedical areas.
This article demonstrates the fabrication of mesoporous silica-based biodegradable Janus-type nanoreactors in sphero-ellipsoid shape by the convenient arrangement of two different transition metals ...in the silica walls for chemodynamic-based cancer therapeutics.
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•Metal-dependent shapes of MSNs directed toward fabrication of asymmetric (Janus) MSNs.•Biodegradable silica walls were fabricated by impregnating two different transition metals.•Guest molecules could be accommodated in the mesopores through pH-responsive coordination interactions.•Dox-loaded Janus MSNs successfully inhibited tumor growth through chemodynamic efficacy.
In recent times, the fabrication of versatile mesoporous silica walls by incorporating various metal species has attracted enormous interest as they significantly enrich the functionalities of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) by offering numerous advantages in diverse fields. Herein, we demonstrate the generation of mesoporous silica-based, dual-metal doped, biodegradable Janus-type (sphero-ellipsoid) nanoreactors using modified Stöber process by arranging two different transition metals in the silica walls, which facilitated the change of MSN’s shape, attributing to their similar charge as well as the distribution of intrinsic siliceous bonds in the confined architectures. As a proof-of-concept, the doped metal species in the silica walls have significantly augmented the loading efficiency of doxorubicin (Dox) through pH-responsive metal-ligand interactions, which specifically released Dox in the tumor endosomal acidic environment and synergized the antitumor efficacy by augmenting the intracellular levels of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) through copper/iron(II)-catalyzed Fenton-like reaction. This innovative one-step approach for synthesizing Janus-type nanoreactors would be a conducive strategy and has great potential as a delivery system in diverse biomedical applications for treating various ailments. We also believe that the nanodevices in association with metals resulting in different shapes could significantly alter the therapeutic effects.
•Well-controlled synthesis lays the foundation for the future success of lanthanide-doped upconversion nanocrystals.•Novel fabrication approaches towards core and core–shell upconversion nanocrystals ...were developed in recent years.•Exploiting different roles played by dopants in regulating upconversion processes and mechanisms.•Prospective and challenges on upconversion nanocrystals are discussed.
In the past few decades, although tremendous advancements have been witnessed by the progress in the fabrication of various kinds of nanomaterials, only those types of nanomaterials with unique features in terms of advantageous morphological attributes and physicochemical properties have become the area of focus towards their applicability in diverse fields. Among them, the lanthanide-doped upconversion nanocrystals (UCNCs) have garnered enormous interest, owing to their unique ability to transform near-infrared (NIR) light to short-wavelength light in the visible and ultraviolet (UV) range. Such UCNCs offer enormous additional advantages which are of particular interest in various applications. Although enormous efforts have been dedicated, in recent years, it is realized that the knowledge and understanding the chemistry of UCNCs is still insufficient, as the more people studied, the more unsolved puzzles are discovered about UCNCs. Therefore, chemistry, which plays a crucial role in regulating the luminescent behavior of UCNCs, needs in-depth elucidations to better understand the UCNCs and their upconversion processes. To facilitate future works and promote the development of UCNCs, in this review, various synthesis approaches and upconversion mechanisms are discussed, with a special focus given on the chemistry behind UCNCs and up-to-date studies.
With the advent of nanotechnology, various modes of traditional treatment strategies have been transformed extensively owing to the advantageous morphological, physiochemical, and functional ...attributes of nano-sized materials, which are of particular interest in diverse biomedical applications, such as diagnostics, sensing, imaging, and drug delivery. Despite their success in delivering therapeutic agents, several traditional nanocarriers often end up with deprived selectivity and undesired therapeutic outcome, which significantly limit their clinical applicability. Further advancements in terms of improved selectivity to exhibit desired therapeutic outcome toward ablating cancer cells have been predominantly made focusing on the precise entry of nanoparticles into tumor cells via targeting ligands, and subsequent delivery of therapeutic cargo in response to specific biological or external stimuli. However, there is enough room intracellularly, where diverse small-sized nanomaterials can accumulate and significantly exert potentially specific mechanisms of antitumor effects toward activation of precise cancer cell death pathways that can be explored. In this review, we aim to summarize the intracellular pathways of nanoparticles, highlighting the principles and state of their destructive effects in the subcellular structures as well as the current limitations of conventional therapeutic approaches. Next, we give an overview of subcellular performances and the fate of internalized nanoparticles under various organelle circumstances, particularly endosome or lysosome, mitochondria, nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum, and Golgi apparatus, by comprehensively emphasizing the unique mechanisms with a series of interesting reports. Moreover, intracellular transformation of the internalized nanoparticles, prominent outcome and potential affluence of these interdependent subcellular components in cancer therapy are emphasized. Finally, we conclude with perspectives with a focus on the contemporary challenges in their clinical applicability.
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