Shuojiong Pan, Jichun Yang, Shaobo Ji, Tianyu Li, Shiqian Gao, Chenxing Sun, Huaping Xu CCS Chem.; 2020, 2, 225–235. Thioredoxin Reductase (TrxR) plays a pivotal role in defending cells against reactive oxygen species (ROS) and maintaining a reduced intracellular environment. It has been discovered that TrxR is elevated significantly in human cancer, evidenced by its association with the promotion of tumor cell proliferation, inhibiting tumor cell apoptosis, as well as enhancing tumor drug resistance. Hence, finding highly selective inhibitors of TrxR is urgently needed. Herein, we develo...

Shiqian Gao, Tianyu Li, Ye Guo, Chenxing Sun, Banruo Xianyu, Huaping Xu Adv. Mater.; 2020, 32, 1907568. Considering the limited clinical benefits of individual approaches against malignancy, natural killer (NK) cell-mediated immunotherapy is increasingly utilized in combination with radiotherapy and target therapeutics. However, the interplay of targeted agents, immunotherapy and radiotherapy is complex. An improved understanding of the effect of chemotherapy or radiotherapy on specific molecular pathways in immune cells would help to optimize the synergistic anti-tumour efficiency. In thi...

Cheng Liu, Zhiyuan Fan, Yizheng Tan, Fuqiang Fan, Huaping Xu Adv. Mater.; 2020, 32, 1907569. Structural color materials with reversible stimuli-responsiveness to external environment have been widely used in sensors, encryption, display and other fields. Compared with other stimuli, visible light is highly controllable both temporally and spatially with less damage to materials, which is more suitable for structural color patterning. Herein, a new diselenide-containing shape memory material is prepared and used for creating patterns via visible light stimulus. In this system, the structura...

Tianyu Li, Shuojiong Pan, Hao Zhuang, Shiqian Gao, Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Bio Mater., 2020, 3, 1283-1292. Developing multifunctional carrier-free nanomedicine with high efficacy attracts tremendous attention in cancer treatment. Here, we develop selenium-containing carrier-free assemblies with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property, which achieve the combination of cancer radiotherapy with chemotherapy. Under γ-radiation, diselenide bonds in the assemblies can be cleaved to form seleninic acid, which exhibits anticancer activity by upregulating the reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels i...

Peng Zhao, Jiahao Xia, Muqing Cao, Huaping Xu ACS Macro Lett., 2020, 9, 163-168. Wavelength-controlled Se–S dynamic chemistry was put forward recently as a convenient way to regulate the balance of a selenide sulfide exchange reaction. In this paper, we synthesized an asymmetric polymeric amphiphile linked with a Se–S bond and then induced it to self-assemble into vesicles in water. When the visible light was applied to the assembly solution with addition of toluene, Se–S bonds containing vesicles were ruptured. Thus, the wavelength-controlled light responses of relatively stable polymer a...

Tianyu Li, Shuojiong Pan, Shiqian Gao, Wentian Xiang, Chenxing Sun, Wei Cao, Huaping Xu Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2020, 59, 2700-2704. Immunotherapy has emerged as a promising new approach for cancer treatment. However, clinically available drugs have been limited until recently, and the antitumor efficacy of most cancer immunotherapies still needs to be improved. Herein, we develop diselenide-pemetrexed assemblies that combine nature killer (NK) cell-based cancer immunotherapy with radiotherapy and chemotherapy in a single system. The assemblies are prepared via co-assembly between pemetre...

Jiahao Xia, Hongbin Li, Huaping Xu Acta Polym. Sin., 2020, 51, 205. Sulfur, selenium-containing bonds, including disufide bond (SS), diselenide bond (SeSe) and selenide-sulfide bond (SeS), are an important type of light responsive dynamic covalent bonds. Among them SS and SeS bond can undergo exchange reaction with the irridiation of UV light while SeSe bond only requires visible light. In this paper we prepared SS or SeSe bond modified quartz substrate via surface modification. Based on the light induced exchange reaction we can obtain polymer chain attached substrates linked by a singl...

Chenxing Sun, Lu Wang, Banruo Xianyu, Tianyu Li, Shiqian Gao, Huaping Xu Biomaterials, 2019, 225, 119514. Selenoxide elimination reaction has been widely used in the field of organic synthesis. However, few studies have been conducted to apply this reaction in biodegradable nanomedicine. In this work, the selenoxide elimination reaction was used for cancer treatment via producing excess cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) for the first time. The β-seleno diesters and porphyrin derivates containing nanoparticle could be responsive to the intracellular ROS and produce acrylates through ...

Wei Cao, Huaping Xu Mater. Chem. Front., 2019, 3, 2010-2017. Supra-amphiphiles formed by noncovalent interactions are a versatile bottom-up fabrication strategy for functional soft materials. Selenium chemistry possesses many unique properties and selenium-containing polymers made by covalent synthesis have developed enormously in the past few decades. Supra-amphiphiles built on selenium-containing species offer more opportunities for functional systems without too many synthetic efforts. This review will give a brief overview of different types of selenium-containing supra-amphiphiles b...

Jiahao Xia, Peng Zhao, Shuojiong Pan, and Huaping Xu ACS Macro Lett., 2019, 8, 629−633 Mechanophore is a kind of functional group that can undergo chemical reactions when given mechanical force stimuli. In this paper, osmotic pressure was used as an external force to trigger a diselenide exchange reaction. A diselenide bond containing block polymer capable of self-assembling to a vesicle structure and an ester bond containing a counterpart were synthesized in this study. When NaCl was added into the solution to generate the osmotic pressure difffference inside and outside vesicles, disel...