Theranostics is a new type of biomedical technology that organically combines the diagnosis and therapy of diseases. Among molecular imaging techniques, the integration of photoacoustic (PA) and fluorescence (FL) imaging modes with high sensitivity and imaging depth provides precise diagnostic outcomes. Gold nanorods (Au NRs) are well‐known contrast agents for PA imaging and photothermal therapy. However, their high toxicity, poor biocompatibility, rapid clearance, and the need for an external laser source limit their application. Therefore, modification of Au NRs with carbon‐based nanomaterials (CBNs) is done to obtain a multifunctional dual‐mode gold‐based nanoformulation (mdGC), which preforms dual‐mode imaging of PA and FL. The results show that mdGC promotes tumor cell apoptosis and exhibits good antitumor performance through the mitochondria‐mediated apoptotic pathway by increasing the production of intracellular reactive oxygen species, reducing mitochondrial membrane potential, and regulating the expression of apoptosis‐related genes. The targeting rate of mdGC to tumor tissue is up to 20.71 ± 1.94% ID g‐1; the tumor growth inhibition rate is as high as 80.44% without external laser sources. In general, mdGC is a potential multifunctional diagnostic and therapy integrated nanoformulation.

such as poor water solubility, [2] low bioavailability, rapid blood clearance, and multidrug resistance. [3] In order to solve these problems, drug delivery systems based on nanocarriers have been extensively developed, which not only increase the drug loading capacity and blood time of the target drug, but also reduce the potential systemic toxicity of the loaded drug. [4] So far, traditional nanocarriers are generally composed of inorganic materials such as carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs), [5] magnetic particles, [6] silica, [7] gold-based nanomaterials, [8] and organic molecules such as polymer NPs, [9] liposomes, [10] micelles, [11] etc. Among them, CBNs have the characteristics of biocompatibility, low toxicity, high water-solubility, and potential to conjugate various molecules, they have been widely used in drug delivery, cancer diagnosis and therapy, and other fields, and are considered as an excellent nanocarrier. [12] It has been reported that CBNs loaded with DOX can be used to target tumor cell nucleus, but in order to improve the drug targeting rate, it is usually necessary to modify active targeting ligands, such as antibodies, folic acid, and peptides (RGD and nuclear targeting peptides), etc. However, these active targeting ligands have potential drawbacks while improving drug targeting, such as the high cost of antibodies and low tumor penetration due to their large size, the low stability of aptamers due to the nucleases in blood plasma, and the low circulating half-life of The emergence of nanocarriers solves the problems of antitumor drugs such as non-targeting, huge side effects, etc., and has been widely used in tumor therapy. Some kinds of antitumor drugs such as doxorubicin (DOX) mainly act on the nucleic acid causing DNA damage, interfering with transcription, and thereby disrupting or blocking the process of cancer cell replication. Herein, a new nanodrug delivery system, the carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs)-Pluronic F127-DOX (CPD), is designed by using CBNs as a nanocarrier for DOX. As a result, the tumor growth inhibition rate of CPD group is as high as 79.42 ± 2.83%, and greatly reduces the side effects. The targeting rate of the CPD group of DOX in the tumor nucleus is 36.78%, and the %ID/g in tumor tissue is 30.09%. The CPD regulates the expression levels of Caspase-3, p53, and Bcl-2 genes by increasing intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and reducing mitochondrial membrane potential, which indicates that mitochondrial-mediated pathways are involved in apoptosis. The CPD nanodrug delivery system increases the effective accumulation of DOX in tumor cell nuclei and tumor tissues, and generates massive ROS, thereby inhibiting tumor growth in vivo, representing a promising agent for anticancer applications.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202100539.

Direct delivery to an organelle-specific point can boost the efficacy of therapy procedures to new heights. Among other subcellular organelles, mitochondria generate ATP as intracellular powerhouse, and are associated with multiple aspects of tumorigenesis and tumor development. Here, a mitochondrial anchored biomimetic nanoplatform (CZACN) is designed and its reversal of tumor hypoxia microenvironment underlying the mitochondrialocated chemo-photothermal therapy is studied. After shuttling into cancer cells, therapeutic payloads including cisplatin (CDDP) and Au nanozymes are controllably released in the ATP-overexpressed mitochondria. CDDP generates O 2 • − , forms H 2 O 2 for a chemical fuel in the next reaction, and damages mitochondrial DNA. Meanwhile, the catalase-like Au nanozymes catalyze the produced hydrogen peroxide for oxygen supply to relieve hypoxic tumor microenvironment, offering cytotoxic singlet oxygen against cancer cells under NIR treatment. As a result of cancer-cell self-recognition, mitochondriatargeted therapy, and photothermal conversion ability, the fabricated CZACNs obtained 89.2 ± 3.70% of tumor growth inhibition under NIR irradiation and constrained the dose-limiting toxicity of CDDP, as well. These findings reinforce the synergistic effect of organelle-specific navigation and in situ oxygen self-sufficiency for combinational chemo-photothermal therapy.

Graphene-based tumor cell nuclear targeting fluorescent nanoprobes (GTTNs) were synthesized in our laboratory as a kind of nanomaterial and showed good performance for both in vivo and in vitro imaging. GTTNs directly cross the cell membrane and specifically target the tumor cell nucleus via a cell membrane permeability targeting (CMPT) mechanism, which takes advantage of the increased permeability of the tumor cell membranes. GTTNs with a CMPT mechanism achieve high targeting efficiency in tumor tissues. With the tumor cell nucleus-targeting characterization, the GTTN distinguishes tumor cells at the single-cell level and recognizes the tumor tissue interface in a very early stage and shows great potential in clinical applications. Toxicity studies are extremely critical for clinical applications. Therefore, we studied the acute and subacute toxicity of GTTNs using an in vivo method and examined the following experimental indicators: mouse body weight, organ coefficients, serum biochemical parameters, and histological changes. The results showed that there were no significant differences in any indicators between the experimental and control mice. We also used an in vitro method to study the cytotoxicity of GTTNs in GES-1 (gastric epithelial cell) cells. Surprisingly, the results demonstrated over 80% cell viability when the incubation time reached up to 72 h under a 200 mg/L concentration of GTTNs, which indicated that GTTNs had low cytotoxicity. GTTNs barely showed any acute or subacute toxicity or cytotoxicity in vivo and in vitro, respectively, which supports their use for clinical applications.

A new graphene-based fluorescent nanoprobe for tumor cell nucleus (GTTNs) was synthesized in our laboratory that penetrates the cell membrane and particularly targets cancer cell nucleus and displays tremendous potential for clinical applications. Although acute and subacute toxicity studies have been conducted on GTTNs, a primary result could be drawn that GTTNs appear to have almost no acute and subacute toxicity. However, as an important part of safety evaluation, the influences on reproductive and offspring developmental toxicity are still absent. In this study, male mice were injected intravenously with GTTNs, and the survival status, histopathology of the testes and epididymides, proliferation and apoptosis of testicular tissue, and sperm motility of mice were measured. To evaluate the short- and long-term fertility in male mice, different male mice resided with untreated female mice on days 1 and 30 after the end of the last treatment, and the offspring health parameters were assessed by measuring pup numbers, body weight, and organ indexes of the pups. The results indicated that GTTNs-exposed male mice retained good fertility, healthy structure of testes and epididymides, and production of healthy sperm. Meanwhile, there were no significant differences between the offspring and the control group. In consideration of GTTNs with broad prospects for biomedical applications, our results contribute a basis for further understanding of its biosafety.