The Application of Nanomaterials in Angiogenesis

Induction of angiogenesis has enormous potential in the treatment of ischemic diseases and the promotion of bulk tissue regeneration. However, the poor activity of angiogenic cells and proangiogenic factors after transplantation is the main problem that imposes its wide applications. Recent studies have found that the development of nanomaterials has solved this problem to some extent. Nanomaterials can be mainly classified into inorganic nanomaterials represented by metals, metal oxides and metal hydroxides, and organic nanomaterials including DNA tetrahedrons, graphene, graphene oxide, and carbon nanotubes. These nanomaterials can induce the release of angiogenic factors either directly or indirectly, thereby initiating a series of signaling pathways to induce angiogenesis. Moreover, appropriate surface modifications of nanomaterial facilitate a variety of functions, such as enhancing its biocompatibility and biostability. In clinical applications, nanomaterials can promote the proliferation and differentiation of endothelial cells or mesenchymal stem cells, thereby promoting the migration of hemangioblast cells to form new blood vessels. This review outlines the role of nanomaterials in angiogenesis and is intended to provide new insights into the clinical treatment of systemic and ischemic diseases.

Luminescent AIE Dots for Anticancer Photodynamic Therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an emerging effective strategy for cancer treatment. Compared with conventional cancer therapies, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, PDT has shown great promise as a next-generation cancer therapeutic strategy owing to its many advantages such as non-invasiveness, negligible observed drug resistance, localized treatment, and fewer side effects. One of the key elements in photodynamic therapy is the photosensitizer (PS) which converts photons into active cytotoxic species, namely, reactive oxygen species (ROS). An ideal PS for photodynamic therapy requires the efficient generation of ROS, high stability against photo bleaching, and robust performance in different environments and concentrations. PSs with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics have drawn significant attention, in that they can overcome the aggregation- caused quenching effect that is commonly seen in the case of fluorescence dyes and provide excellent performance at high concentrations or in their condensed state. Moreover, organic nanomaterials with AIE characteristics, or AIE dots, have played an increasingly significant role in assisting PDT based on its excellent ROS generation efficiency and simultaneous imaging feature. This review summarizes the recent advances on the molecular design of AIE PSs and AIE dots-based probes, as well as their emerging applications for enhanced anticancer PDT theranostics.

Reactive Oxygen Species-Based Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy

Nanotechnology advances in cancer therapy applications have led to the development of nanomaterials that generate cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) specifically in tumor cells. ROS act as a double-edged sword, as they can promote tumorigenesis and proliferation but also trigger cell death by enhancing intracellular oxidative stress. Various nanomaterials function by increasing ROS production in tumor cells and thereby disturbing their redox balance, leading to lipid peroxidation, and oxidative damage of DNA and proteins. In this review, we outline these mechanisms, summarize recent progress in ROS-based nanomaterials, including metal-based nanoparticles, organic nanomaterials, and chemotherapy drug-loaded nanoplatforms, and highlight their biomedical applications in cancer therapy as drug delivery systems (DDSs) or in combination with chemodynamic therapy (CDT), photodynamic therapy (PDT), or sonodynamic therapy (SDT). Finally, we discuss the advantages and limitations of current ROS-mediated nanomaterials used in cancer therapy and speculate on the future progress of this nanotechnology for oncological applications.

Organic superstructure microwires with hierarchical spatial organisation

Rationally designing and precisely constructing the dimensions, configurations and compositions of organic nanomaterials are key issues in material chemistry. Nevertheless, the precise synthesis of organic heterostructure nanomaterials remains challenging owing to the difficulty of manipulating the homogeneous/heterogeneous-nucleation process and the complex epitaxial relationships of combinations of dissimilar materials. Herein, we propose a hierarchical epitaxial-growth approach with the combination of longitudinal and horizontal epitaxial-growth modes for the design and synthesis of a variety of organic superstructure microwires with accurate spatial organisation by regulating the heterogeneous-nucleation crystallisation process. The lattice-matched longitudinal and horizontal epitaxial-growth modes are separately employed to construct the primary organic core/shell and segmented heterostructure microwires. Significantly, these primary organic core/shell and segmented microwires are further applied to construct the core/shell-segmented and segmented-core/shell type’s organic superstructure microwires through the implementation of multiple spatial epitaxial-growth modes. This strategy can be generalised to all organic microwires with tailored multiple substructures, which affords an avenue to manipulate their physical/chemical features for various applications.

Applications of Organic Chemistry in Nano-Medicine

Nanotechnology offers multiple benefits. Nanomedicine and nanodelivery systems are relatively new areas in nanotechnology. There are number of outstanding applications of the nanomedicine in diagnosing diseases, delivering drugs to its target location, and thus treating human diseases. Here materials in the nanoscale range are employed to serve as means of diagnostic tools and also to deliver precise medicines to specific targeted sites in a controlled manner. Also, metal nanoparticles offer great interest in modern chemistry and materials research because of their applications in diverse fields such as photochemistry, nanoelectronics, optics, and catalysis. Chemistry provides various nanostructured materials either synthetic or isolated from natural sources offers opportunities and challenges in drug delivery and their applications including biomedical imaging, biosensing, diagnostic, and therapy. Thymoquinone, a bioactive compound in Nigella sativa, after encapsulation in lipid nanocarrier, has been found to show six-fold increase in bioavailability in comparison to free thymoquinone. In addition to this, organic nanomaterials have recently become of great interest for photovoltaic applications also.

Recent Progresses in Organic-Inorganic Nano Technological Platforms for Cancer Therapeutics

Nanotechnology offers promising tools in interdisciplinary research areas and getting an upsurge of interest in cancer therapeutics. Organic nanomaterials and inorganic nanomaterials bring revolutionary advancement in cancer eradication process. Oncology is achieving new heights under nano technological platform by expediting chemotherapy, radiotherapy, photo thermodynamic therapy, bio imaging and gene therapy. Various nanovectors have been developed for targeted therapy which acts as “Nano-bullets” for tumor cells selectively. Recently combinational therapies are catching more attention due to their enhanced effect leading towards the use of combined organicinorganic nano platforms. The current review covers organic, inorganic and their hybrid nanomaterials for various therapeutic action. The technological aspect of this review emphasizes on the use of inorganic-organic hybrids and combinational therapies for better results and also explores the future opportunities in this field.

Electrosynthetized copper based nanoantimicrobials for the inhibition of biofilms

<ol> <li><strong>S. I. Hossain<sup>1,3,*</sup>, M. C. Sportelli<sup>1,2,3</sup>, R. A. Picca<sup>1,3</sup>,</strong> <strong>N. Ditaranto<sup> 1,3</sup>, N. Cioffi<sup>1,3</sup></strong></li> </ol> <p><sup>1</sup>Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy; <sup>2</sup>CNR, Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie UOS, Bari, Italy;       <sup>3</sup>CSGI (Center for Colloid and Surface Science) c/o Dept. Chemistry, via Orabona 4, 70125 Bari, Italy.</p> <p> </p> <p>Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) are considered as potential antimicrobial agents due to their improved stability and safety, and longer active period than that of organic nanomaterials, with multi-targeted mechanism of action [1]. Nevertheless, metal NPs can suffer from agglomeration, reducing their antibacterial activity [2]. Cu incorporation in inorganic substrates such as metal oxides or montmorillonite (MMT) plays an important role due to the possibilities of creating an antibacterial nanomaterial with slow release of Cu species in order to obtain a prolonged antibacterial activity. Therefore, CuNPs were synthesized via a rapid electrochemical method using the inorganic micro-powders as carrier. Characterization studies on the nanocomposite were done by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The as-prepared Cu-based nanocomposites could be employed for inhibiting the growth of biofilms.</p> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <ol> <li>Nanotechnology 25, (2014), 135101</li> <li>ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 4, (2012), 178–184</li> </ol> <p><strong>Acknowledgements</strong></p> <p>"Financial support is acknowledged from European Union’s 2020 research <br /> and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant <br /> Agreement No. 813439."</p>

Antifungal Nanomaterials: Current Progress and Future Directions

ABSTRACT Fungal infection poses a severe threat to human health worldwide resulting in a serious problem in clinic. Due to the limited arsenal of existing antifungal drugs, the nanomaterials were thus regarded as the candidate for developing new antifungal drugs. On the one hand, the antifungal nanomaterials are divided into inorganic nanomaterials, organic nanomaterials, and hybrid nanomaterials, among which inorganic nanoparticles include metal and semiconducting categories. On the other hand, they can also be divided into inorganic particles, organic structures, and mixed nanostructures. Currently various directions for the research and development of antifungal nanomaterials are undergoing. To improve the antifungal effect, the chemical modification of nanomaterials and combination with the available drugs are two strategies widely used. In addition, optimizing the synthetic process of nanomaterials is also a major method to broaden their antifungal application. This review focuses on the current research progress and cutting-edge technologies of antifungal nanomaterials in the field of pharmacodynamics, synthesis and combination of drugs. The nanomaterial will provide a promising and broadly effective antifungal strategy and represent a potentially repositionable candidate for the treatment of fungal infections.