Near-infrared light-mediated theranostic agents with superior tissue penetration and minimal invasion have captivated researchers in cancer research in the past decade. Herein, a probe sonication-assisted liquid exfoliation approach for scalable and continual synthesis of colloidal rhenium disulfide nanosheets, which is further explored as theranostic agents for cancer diagnosis and therapy, is reported. Due to high-Z element of Re (Z = 75) and significant photoacoustic effect, the obtained PVP-capped ReS nanosheets are evaluated as bimodality contrast agents for computed tomography and photoacoustic imaging. In addition, utilizing the strong near-infrared absorption and ultrahigh photothermal conversion efficiency (79.2%), ReS nanosheets could also serve as therapeutic agents for photothermal ablation of tumors with a tumor elimination rate up to 100%. Importantly, ReS nanosheets show no obvious toxicity based on the cytotoxicity assay, serum biochemistry, and histological analysis. This work highlights the potentials of ReS nanosheets as a single-component theranostic nanoplatform for bioimaging and antitumor therapy.

131 1 (1993).The direct formation of 2,2-disubstituted 1,3-cyclopentanedione compounds by a Lewis acid catalysed reaction with 1,2-bis(trimethylsilyloxy)cyclobutene proceeds in good to excellent yields with unhindered ketals, but steric hindrance reduces the yields considerably. A carbonyl group a or P to the ketal, or a carbon-carbon double bond a to the ketal, stops the reaction completely. Orthoesters do not give geminally acylated products in synthetically useful yields.

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Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is endemic in Southern China and Southeast Asia. The present study investigated the activity of osthole in suppressing NPC along with the underlying mechanism. Cell growth inhibition was measured using the MTT assay. Apoptosis was detected through 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole staining and flow cytometry. Western blotting was used to identify the signaling pathway. Osthole markedly inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis in the NPC cell line. Western blotting results revealed the increased activation of caspases 3, 8, and 9 and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase. Osthole treatment significantly reduced the expression of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2 and increased the expression of the proapoptotic proteins Bax, Bak, BimL, BimS, and t-Bid. Osthole treatment also increased the expression of Fas, FADD, TNF-R1, TNF-R2, DcR2, RIP, and DR5. In addition, osthole treatment significantly increased the expression levels of phosphorylated ERK1/2 and JNK1/2. These results suggested that osthole exerts cytotoxic effects on NPC cell lines mainly through apoptosis mediated by the Fas-Fas ligand and mitochondrial pathway. Osthole could be a potential anticancer agent for NPC.

Humic acids, a major constituent of natural organic carbon resources, are naturally formed through the microbial biodegradation of animal and plant residues. Due to numerous physiologically active groups (phenol, carboxyl, and quinone), the biomedical applications of humic acid have been already investigated across different cultures for several centuries or even longer. In this work, sodium humate, the sodium salt of humic acid, is explored as phototheranostic agent for light-induced photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy based on intrinsic absorption in the near-infrared region. The purified colloidal sodium humate exhibits a high photothermal conversion efficiency up to 76.3%, much higher than that of the majority of state-of-the-art photothermal agents including gold nanorods, Cu S nanoparticles, antimonene quantum dots, and black phosphorus quantum dots, leading to obvious photoacoustic enhancement in vitro and in vivo. Besides, highly effective photothermal ablation of HeLa tumor is achieved through intratumoral injection. Impressively, sodium humate reveals ultralow toxicity at the cellular and animal levels. This work promises the great potential of humic acids as light-mediated theranostic agents, thus expanding the application scope of traditional humic acids in biomedical field.