Nan Lü

Abstract Glucose is a key energy supplier and nutrient for tumor growth. Herein, inspired by the glucose oxidase (GOx)‐assisted conversion of glucose into gluconic acid and toxic H 2 O 2 , a novel treatment paradigm of starving‐like therapy is developed for significant tumor‐killing effects, more effective than conventional starving therapy by only cutting off the energy supply. Furthermore, the generated acidic H 2 O 2 can oxidize l ‐Arginine ( l ‐Arg) into NO for enhanced gas therapy. By using hollow mesoporous organosilica nanoparticle (HMON) as a biocompatible/biodegradable nanocarrier for the co‐delivery of GOx and l ‐Arg, a novel glucose‐responsive nanomedicine ( l ‐Arg‐HMON‐GOx) has been for the first time constructed for synergistic cancer starving‐like/gas therapy without the need of external excitation, which yields a remarkable H 2 O 2 –NO cooperative anticancer effect with minimal adverse effect.

It is essential to control the size and morphology of nanoparticles strictly in nanomedicine. Protein cages offer significant potential for templated synthesis of inorganic nanoparticles. In this study, we successfully synthesized ultrasmall copper sulfide (CuS) nanoparticles inside the cavity of ferritin (Fn) nanocages by a biomimetic synthesis method. The uniform CuS-Fn nanocages (CuS-Fn NCs) showed strong near-infrared absorbance and high photothermal conversion efficiency. In quantitative ratiometric photoacoustic imaging (PAI), the CuS-Fn NCs exhibited superior photoacoustic tomography improvements for real-time in vivo PAI of entire tumors. With the incorporation of radionuclide (64)Cu, (64)CuS-Fn NCs also served as an excellent PET imaging agent with higher tumor accumulation compared to free copper. Following the guidance of PAI and PET, CuS-Fn NCs were applied in photothermal therapy to achieve superior cancer therapeutic efficiency with good biocompatibility both in vitro and in vivo. The results demonstrate that the bioinspired multifunctional CuS-Fn NCs have potential as clinically translatable cancer theranostics and could provide a noninvasive, highly sensitive, and quantitative in vivo guiding method for cancer photothermal therapies in experimental and clinical settings.

High performance organic field-effect transistor (OFET)-based ammonia sensors are demonstrated with ultrathin (4–6 molecular layers) dendritic microstripes of an organic semiconductor prepared via dip-coating. These sensors exhibit high sensitivity, fast response/recovery rate, good selectivity, low concentration detection ability, and reliable reversibility, as well as stability. Such a performance represents great progress in the field of OFET-based sensors. As a service to our authors and readers, this journal provides supporting information supplied by the authors. Such materials are peer reviewed and may be re-organized for online delivery, but are not copy-edited or typeset. Technical support issues arising from supporting information (other than missing files) should be addressed to the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.

Abstract The success of radiotherapy relies on tumor-specific delivery of radiosensitizers to attenuate hypoxia resistance. Here we report an ammonia-assisted hot water etching strategy for the generic synthesis of a library of small-sized (sub-50 nm) hollow mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (HMONs) with mono, double, triple, and even quadruple framework hybridization of diverse organic moieties by changing only the introduced bissilylated organosilica precursors. The biodegradable thioether-hybridized HMONs are chosen for efficient co-delivery of tert -butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) and iron pentacarbonyl (Fe(CO) 5 ). Distinct from conventional RT, radiodynamic therapy (RDT) is developed by taking advantage of X-ray-activated peroxy bond cleavage within TBHP to generate •OH, which can further attack Fe(CO) 5 to release CO molecules for gas therapy. Detailed in vitro and in vivo studies reveal the X-ray-activated cascaded release of •OH and CO molecules from TBHP/Fe(CO) 5 co-loaded PEGylated HMONs without reliance on oxygen, which brings about remarkable destructive effects against both normoxic and hypoxic cancers.

A simple approach to wafer-scale self-cleaning antireflective hierarchical silicon structures is demonstrated. By employing the KOH etching and silver catalytic etching, pyramidal hierarchical structures were generated on the crystalline silicon wafer, which exhibit strong antireflection and superhydrophobic properties after fluorination. Furthermore, a flexible superhydrophobic substrate was fabricated by transferring the hierarchical Si structure to the NOA 63 film with UV-assisted imprint lithography. This method is of potential application in optical, optoelectronic, and wettability control devices.