Glioma is the most common primary craniocerebral tumor caused by the cancerous growth of glial cells in the brain and spinal cord. Currently, standard treatment is the surgical resection followed by concurrent radiation and chemotherapy. However, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) prevents most antitumor drugs from entering the brain and reduces their efficacy, especially in low-grade glioma. Since L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) is highly expressed in glioma cells and mediates drug transport across the BBB, it is a promising target for drug delivery and treatment of glioma. Temozolomide (TMZ) is the first-line treatment for glioma, however, patients often exhibit drug resistance at advanced stage. A multikinase inhibitor and inducer of ferroptosis, sorafenib can improve the therapeutic effects of TMZ. Therefore, to optimize the glioma treatment and cross the BBB, we designed LAT1-targeting nanoparticles co-loaded with TMZ and sorafenib. Our results from both in vitro and in vivo studies confirmed that LAT1-targeting nanoparticles significantly increased the cellular uptake, cytotoxicity, accumulation at tumor site, and the anti-tumor efficacy compared to the non-target nanoparticles. Therefore, LAT1 can be used as a potential target for brain-targeted drug delivery, and sorafenib-induced ferroptosis can aid the anti-glioma efficacy of TMZ.

Nanodiamonds (NDs) are emerging as a promising platform for theranostic particles since they offer a single platform that possesses multiple important properties. These include a simple mechanism of synthesis, small size, chemical inertness, a variety of available surface functional groups, good biocompatibility, stable fluorescence, and a long fluorescence lifetime. The use of NDs to deliver anticancer drugs has been an important ND application since NDs can increase chemosensitivity, sustain drug release, and minimize drug side effects. These unique properties have stimulated the application of NDs to cancer imaging and therapy. In this review, we offer a brief introduction of ND structure and their functional properties. This is followed by a summary of recent uses of NDs for imaging purposes, including fluorescent imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and other imaging technologies. Special concern is given to studies focusing on NDs use for anticancer drug delivery, anticancer gene delivery, photothermal and photodynamic therapies, and multifunctional combination therapy. We then discuss ND biocompatibility and toxicity in various cells and animal models. Finally, we also discuss the main problems to be solved by future research before NDs can be put to clinical use. The purpose of this review is to provide a side-by-side comparison of studies reporting ND-mediated cancer imaging therapy so that readers can assess the potential clinical applications of ND and have the background necessary to understand the clinical test results associated with ND-related therapy in animals and humans.

Lung cancer has the highest incidence and mortality rate worldwide. Immunotherapy is a universal treatment for lung cancer, but its overall treatment remains a challenge. Tumor immunoediting is a process in which the immune system restricts or promotes tumor development through elimination, equilibrium, and escape to change tumor immunogenicity and obtain an immunosuppressive mechanism to promote disease progression. An increasing number of immunotherapy drugs, including monoclonal antibody-targeting drugs and chimeric antigen (Ag) receptor-modified T cells (CAR-T cells), have been used in clinical therapy. Additionally, cancer vaccine development and new clustered regularly spaced short palindromes (CRISPR)-based combination therapies against cancer open up new avenues for immunotherapy. However, these immunotherapies cause autoimmune induction and non-specific inflammation, with many limitations. The development and study of nanoparticle systems have shown the possibility of localization, pharmacokinetic programming, and immunomodulator co-delivery. Rapid advances in nanotechnology over the past decade have provided a strategic impetus for cancer immunotherapy improvements. Nanotechnology advancements in various aspects, such as virus-like size, high surface–volume ratio, and surface modifications to precisely target specific cell types, can be investigated through cancer vaccine and immunomodulator delivery system development. This review presents the current immunotherapy approaches for lung cancer and emphasizes the current process and prospects of the fusion of cancer immunotherapy, nanotechnology, bioengineering, and drug delivery.

A bioresponsive polymeric nanocarrier for drug delivery is able to alter its physical and physicochemical properties in response to a variety of biological signals and pathological changes, and can exert its therapeutic efficacy within a confined space. These nanosystems can optimize the biodistribution and subcellular location of therapeutics by exploiting the differences in biochemical properties between tumors and normal tissues. Moreover, bioresponsive polymer-based nanosystems could be rationally designed as precision therapeutic platforms by optimizing the combination of responsive elements and therapeutic components according to the patient-specific disease type and stage. In this review, recent advances in smart bioresponsive polymeric nanosystems for cancer chemotherapy and immunotherapy will be summarized. We mainly discuss three categories, including acidity-sensitive, redox-responsive, and enzyme-triggered polymeric nanosystems. The important issues regarding clinical translation such as reproducibility, manufacture, and probable toxicity, are also commented.

Stroke is a serious acute cerebrovascular disease attributable to disruptions in the blood supply to the brain tissue as a result of vascular obstruction or sudden rupture of blood vessels in the brain, which further result in hypoxia of the brain and reduction of necessary nutrients, apoptosis of neurons, and damage to brain tissue. The majority of stroke patients are ischemic stroke. The main clinical treatments for ischemic stroke include medical thrombolysis in the early stage of onset and surgical thrombectomy or stent implantation in the late stage of onset, all of which have their own indications, advantages, and disadvantages, and show limited clinical application. For cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury with an extremely poor prognosis, there is currently no effective prevention and treatment method in the clinic. Therefore, timely and effective treatment is needed to treat cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury. An increasing number of studies have shown that natural products have a good curative effect on cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury. However, due to their low solubility, low bioavailability, and short half-life, many natural products cannot optimally exert their curative effects on cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury. Natural products-based nanoparticles modified with specific ligands have attracted much attention because of their high-efficiency permeation through the blood–brain barrier, targeted delivery abilities, and the protection of the active components from degradation. Therefore, this review focused on the prevention and treatment of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury in the natural product-based nanoparticles.

Oral cancer is a common malignant tumor of the head and neck, and surgery combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy is the primary treatment modality. However, a positive resection margin that may lead to recurrence after surgery has always been a critical issue to address. Furthermore, radiotherapy and chemotherapy also have shortcomings such as resistance to chemotherapy and radiation, lack of targeting, and severe side effects. Therefore, exploring new methods of tumor surgical navigation and tumor treatment is of great significance for oral cancer. Although, the emerging near-infrared II (NIR-II, 1,000–1,700 nm) region fluorescent imaging has revolutionized surgical navigation, a high tumor-targeting fluorescent probe remains lacking. Furthermore, while emerging photothermal therapy (PTT) can overcome chemoradiotherapy’s shortcomings and achieve precise treatment of tumors, its clinical application is still limited by the lack of high photothermal conversion efficiency, high photothermal stability, and highly penetrating materials. Herein, a NIR-II dye SQ890 is developed for tumor imaging and PTT of oral cancer. By assembling into nanoparticles (NPs) and being modified with epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeting peptides GE11, SQ890 NPs-Pep can specifically accumulate in tumor sites via active targeting, and realize photoacoustic/NIR-II fluorescence dual-modality imaging-guided PTT of oral cancer.