Selenium-Doped Carbon Quantum Dots for Free-Radical Scavenging

Feng Li, Tianyu Li, Chenxing Sun, Jiahao Xia, Yang Jiao and Huaping Xu Angew.Chem. Int.Ed., 2017, 56, 9910–9914 Heteroatom doping is an effective way to adjust the fluorescent properties of carbon quantum dots. However, selenium-doped carbon dots have rarely been reported, eve though selenium has unique chemical properties such as redox-responsive properties owing to its special electronegativity. Herein, a facile and high-output strategy to fabricate selenium- doped carbon quantum dots (Se-CQDs) with green fluorescence (quantum yield 7.6 %) is developed through the hydro-thermal treatment...
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Nanomedicine Assembled by Coordinated Selenium-Platinum Complexes Can Selectively Induce Cytotoxicity in Cancer Cells by Targeting the Glutathione Antioxidant Defense System

Feng Li, Tianyu Li, Xuexiang Han, Hao Zhuang, Guangjun Nie, and Huaping Xu ACS BIOMATER-SCI ENG, 2018, 4, 1954-1962 Selenium is a unique, essential trace element that plays an important role in the antioxidant defense and redox regulation of biological processes. We have reported that novel selenium-containing platinum-based anticancer molecules (EG-Se/Pt) had selective cytotoxicity toward cancer cells. Herein, we found the underlying mechanism of selective cytotoxicity to be closely related to the glutathione antioxidant defense system. Elevated ROS make cancer cells more vulnerable to ...
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Diselenide-Containing Hyperbranched Polymer with Light-Induced Cytotoxicity

Chenxing Sun, Shaobi Ji, Feng Li and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2017, 9, 12924–12929. A light-induced cytotoxicity system was fabricated using active diselenide/porphyrin-containing hyperbranched polymer aggregates in aqueous solution through emulsification. When the nanoparticles were irradiated with visible light, 1O2 was produced by the porphyrin photosensitizers in the system, which cleaved the diselenide bonds in the polymer chains and disassembled the nanosystem. Interestingly the oxidized products exhibited cytotoxicity to the MDA-MB 231cell line without using extra antic...
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Near-Infrared Light Stimuli-responsive Synergistic Therapy Nanoplatforms Based on the Coordination of Tellurium-containing Block Polymer and Cisplatin for Cancer Treatment

Feng Li, Tianyu Li, Wei Cao, Wang Lu and Huaping Xu Biomaterials, 2017, 133, 208-218. Cisplatin (CDDP) has received worldwide approval for clinical use in the past decades. However, its development in cancer chemotherapy was overshadowed by severe side effects and drug resistance. Herein, we developed a CDDP drug delivery system with high encapsulation efficiency and near-infrared light stimuli-responsive drug release properties based on the coordination of novel tellurium-containing block polymer (PEG- PUTe-PEG) and CDDP. The nanocarriers made from PEG-PUTe-PEG were loaded wit...
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Selenium-containing Polymer@Metal-organic Frameworks Nanocomposites as an Efficient Multi-responsive Drug Delivery System

Weiqiang Zhou, Lu Wang, Feng Li, Weina Zhang, Wei Huang, Fengwei Huo and Huaping Xu Adv. Funct. Mater., 2017, 27, 1605465. The development of efficient multi-responsive drug delivery systems (DDS) to control drug release has been widely explored. Herein, we report a facile strategy that enabled the micelles of the selenium-containing polymer with the drug to be encapsulated in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which served as multi-responsive drug release by employing the selenium-containing polymers with redox-triggered property and the MOFs with pH-triggered property in DDS. In this cas...
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Diselenide Covalent Chemistry at the Interface: Stabilizing Asymmetric Diselenide-containing Polymer via Micelle Formation

Jiahao Xia, Shaobo Ji and Huaping Xu Polym. Chem., 2016, 7, 6708-6713. We demonstrated the proof-of-concept that diselenide dynamic chemistry can perform at oil/water interface. The assymetric diselenide-containing polymer, which would decompose under visible light once seperated from metathesis mixture, was successfully stabilized via a micelle induced stabilization method.
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Tellurium-containing Nanoparticles for Controlled Delivery of Cisplatin Based on Coordination Interaction

Wei Cao, Feng Li, Ruofan Chen and Huaping Xu RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 94033-94037. Tellurium containing nanoparticles were designed and synthesized for the delivery of cisplatin based on coordination interaction. The tellurium containing nanomedicine could achieve betterin vivo efficacy and reduce side effects, owing to the prolonged blood circulation. This kind of approach marked a new frontier of tellurium containing nanomedicine.  
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Selenium-containing Amphiphiles Reduced and Stabilized Gold Nanoparticles: Kill Cancer Cells via Reactive Oxygen Species

Tianyu Li, Feng Li, Wentian Xiang, Yu Yi, Yuyan Chen, Liang Cheng, Zhuang Liu and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2016, 8, 22106–22112. Selenium has attracted increasing interest in the past decades because of the function of regulating the redox balance in human body. However, biomedical studies of selenium are still limited. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), typically prepared by a first reduction step followed by a second stabilization step, are widely applied in biomedical studies. But their own anti-cancer activity is less studied. Here, we report 2-nm AuNPs with significant anti-...
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Stimuli-Responsive Layer-by-Layer Tellurium-Containing Polymer Films for the Combination of Chemotherapy and Photodynamic Therapy

Fuqiang Fan, Lu Wang, Feng Li, Yu Fu and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2016, 8, 17004-17010. Tellurium-containing photoresponsive polyelectrolyte multilayer films were fabricated by layer-by-layer assembly of a tellurium-containing polymer, photosensitizer, and poly(styrenesulfonate). The resulting films were investigated by UV/vis spectroscopy, XPS, EPR, and fluorescence spectroscopy. Under visible light, the photosensitizer in the film is excited and transforms triplet oxygen into singlet oxygen in aqueous solution. Singlet oxygen oxidizes −Te– to high valence state (Te═O) on...
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Tellurium-Containing Polymers: Towards Biomaterials and Optoelectronic Materials

Lu Wang, Wei Cao and Huaping Xu ChemNanoMat, 2016, 2, 479-488. Tellurium-containing polymers have been increasingly attractive owing to their unique properties as biomaterials and optoelectronic material. The relatively large atom size and low electronegativity of tellurium give tellurium many unique properties, such as coordination ability and redox sensitivity. Introducing of tellurium can endow materials different responsiveness, which makes them possible to be employed as biomaterials. The narrow band gap of polytellurophene also makes it possible to be used in optoelectronic materia...
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