Glioblastoma multiforme is one of the most fatal intracranial tumors with no effective treatment. The drug concentration in tumor sites is usually insufficient to reach therapeutic levels, due to poor blood–brain‐barrier (BBB) permeability and short biological half‐life. Inspired by the proneness of those malignant tumors to brain metastasis, a brain metastatic tumor cell membrane‐coated nanocarrier with core–shell structure is constructed to cross BBB for imaging and photothermal therapy of early brain tumors. The cell membranes as the shell are extracted from different metastatic tumor cells, which endow the nanoparticles with BBB‐crossing ability and long circulation. Indocyanine green (ICG)‐loaded polymeric nanoparticle as the core allows fluorescence imaging and phototherapy of brain tumors. The as‐prepared biomimetic nanoparticles display superb BBB penetration and effective suppression of tumor growth. These findings suggest the biomimetic nanotechnology provides a new insight for the design of BBB‐crossing nanomaterials and is promising to treat brain diseases.

Branched catalytic hairpin assembly is proposed for dynamic self-assembly of DNA dendrimers for signal amplification and in situ imaging of microRNAs in live cells with high sensitivity and selectivity.

Taking advantage of the strong hydrophobicity of the anticancer drug camptothecin (CPT), the CPT molecule was conjugated to a class of low-molecular-weight (MW) poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains (MW = 500, 1000, and 2000), forming an amphiphilic prodrug. The CPT-PEG prodrug formed stable hydrogels based on a combination of the partial inclusion complexation between one end of the PEG blocks and α-CD and the hydrophobic aggregation of CPT groups. Meanwhile, the formed hydrogels could be loaded with water-soluble drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), which is always combined with CPT drugs to enhance their anticancer activity. Moreover, the hydrogel systems demonstrate unique structure-related reversible gel-sol transition properties at a certain temperature due to the reversible supramolecular assembly, and the gel-sol transition temperature could be modulated by varying the length of the PEG chain and the concentrations of α-CD, demonstrating the possibility of achieving on-demand gel-sol transitions. The structure-related reversible gel-sol transition properties were proved by rheological property, XRD, DSC, and SEM measurements. The different controlled release profiles of two different anticancer drugs showed significant temperature-dependent properties. This easily prepared supramolecular hydrogel with excellent biocompatibility and tunable temperature responsiveness has significant potential for controlled drug release applications.

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