title: Near-infrared light activated delivery platform for cancer therapy.
abstract: Cancer treatment using conventional drug delivery platforms may lead to fatal damage to normal cells. Among various intelligent delivery platforms, photoresponsive delivery platforms are becoming popular, as light can be easily focused and tuned in terms of power intensity, wavelength, and irradiation time, allowing remote and precise control over therapeutic payload release both spatially and temporally. This unprecedented controlled delivery manner is important to improve therapeutic efficacy while minimizing side effects. However, most of the existing photoactive delivery platforms require UV/visible excitation to initiate their function, which suffers from phototoxicity and low level of tissue penetration limiting their practical applications in biomedicine. With the advanced optical property of converting near infrared (NIR) excitation to localized UV/visible emission, upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) have emerged as a promising photoactive delivery platform that provides practical applications for remote spatially and temporally controlled release of therapeutic payload molecules using low phototoxic and high tissue penetration NIR light as the excitation source. This article reviews the state-of-the-art design, synthesis and therapeutic molecular payload encapsulation strategies of UCNP-based photoactive delivery platforms for cancer therapy. Challenges and promises for engineering of advanced delivery platforms are also highlighted.
authors.affiliation: Center for Sarcoma and Connective Tissue Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA 02114, USA; The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China. Electronic address: minlin@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Center for Sarcoma and Connective Tissue Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Center for Sarcoma and Connective Tissue Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hornicek
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China; Bioinspired Engineering and Biomechanics Center (BEBC), Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China.
authors.forename: Tian Jian
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Mansoor
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amiji
authors.affiliation: Center for Sarcoma and Connective Tissue Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MA 02114, USA. Electronic address: ZDUAN@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Zhenfeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Duan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004247:DNA / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000378:metabolism; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007259:Infrared Rays; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D010778:Photochemotherapy; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D004247:DNA
keywords: Cancer therapy; Controlled delivery; Payload encapsulation strategies; Photoactivation; Upconversion nanoparticle