Jia Liu

• PhD
• Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Hypoxia, a prevalent characteristic of solid tumors, substantially impairs the efficacy of cancer treatments. However, there are no feasible clinical approaches for treating hypoxic tumors. Here, we develop metal-phenolic networks (CuGI) utilizing the natural glycolysis inhibitor (epigallocatechin gallate) and the essential metal element in the hum...

Background Traditional chemotherapeutic agents suffer from a lack of selectivity, poor targeting ability, and drug resistance. Developing tumor-specific therapies is crucial for precisely eliminating tumors while circumventing toxicity to normal tissues. Disulfiram (DSF), an FDA-approved drug for treating alcohol dependence, exhibits antitumor effe...

Diabetic foot ulcer typically undergoes a delayed wound‐healing process owing to the disordered microenvironment, including persistent inflammation, long‐term hypoxia, and excessive fibrosis, eventually leading to severe disabilities and other poor outcomes. However, current strategies cannot meet the dynamic demands during the wound‐healing proces...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness among elderly people worldwide. However, there are currently no effective treatments for AMD. Oxidative stress-induced retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) degeneration and the inflammatory response are the main causes of AMD. In this study, a polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated rhod...

Background Despite recent advances the prognosis of pulmonary hypertension remains poor and warrants novel therapeutic options. Extensive studies, including ours, have revealed that hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension is associated with high oxidative stress. Cerium oxide nanozyme or nanoparticles (CeNPs) have displayed catalytic activity mimick...

Retinal ischemia‒reperfusion (IR) is a major contributor to vision impairment and irreversible vision loss due to retinal ganglion cell (RGC) injury or loss. Contemporary therapeutic approaches predominantly focus on the amelioration of symptoms rather than addressing the fundamental etiological factors. Oxidative stress is a notable feature and an...

Rapid drug clearance and off-target effects of therapeutic drugs can induce low bioavailability and systemic side effects and gravely restrict the therapeutic effects of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). Here, we propose an amplifying targeting strategy based on orally administered gallium (Ga)-based liquid metal (LM) nano-agents to efficiently e...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a prevalent and aggressive malignancy characterized by a complex tumor microenvironment (TME). Given the variations in the level of adipocyte infiltration in TME, the prognosis may differ among CRC patients. Thus, there is an urgent need to establish a reliable method for identifying adipocyte subtypes in CRC in order to...

Endothelialization is important for offering an anticoagulant surface, which is crucial for the construction of tissue‐engineered heart valves. Silk sericin is extensively investigated in the biomedical field due to its remarkable biological activities and diverse functional groups, favoring chemical modifications for the formation of versatile con...

Sericin, a protein derived from silkworm cocoons, is considered a waste product derived from the silk industry for thousands of years due to a lack of understanding of its properties. However, in recent decades, a range of exciting properties of sericin are studied and uncovered, including cytocompatibility, low‐immunogenicity, photo‐luminescence,...

Chronic diabetic wounds remain a worldwide challenge for both the clinic and research. Given the vicious circle of oxidative stress and inflammatory response as well as the impaired angiogenesis of the diabetic wound tissues, the wound healing process is disturbed and poorly responds to the current treatments. In this work, a nickel‐based metal‐org...

Sepsis is a life-threatening emergency that causes millions of deaths every year due to severe infection and inflammation. Nevertheless, current therapeutic regimens are inadequate to promptly address the vast diversity of potential pathogens. Omiganan, an antimicrobial peptide, has shown promise for neutralizing endotoxins and eliminating diverse...

T-cell immunoglobulin mucin (TIM)-3 blockade ameliorates T cell exhaustion and triggers dendritic cell (DC) inflammasome activation, showing great potential in immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) immunotherapy. However, pharmacokinetic profile and T cell/DC infiltration in tumor microenvironment is still undesired. Here, we develop a long noncoding RN...

Cinnamaldehyde, a natural product that can be extracted from a variety of plants of the genus Cinnamomum, exhibits excellent biological activities including antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties. To overcome the disadvantages (e.g., poor water solubility and sensitivity to light) or enhance the advantages (e.g., hi...

Implantable power sources face great challenges in balancing multiple factors including high performance, biocompatibility, mechanical properties for soft tissue fit, and biodegradability. Toward this goal, a simple and feasible method is proposed to prepare implantable a hydrogel‐based supercapacitor (SC). Specially, a multinetwork conductive elec...

Combination therapy is an effective way to alleviate the shortcoming of monotherapy and enhances therapeutic efficacy. Herein, a distinctive hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticle (HMSNs) encapsulated with folic acid-modified bovine serum albumin (BSA-FA), denoted as HBF, was engineered for tumor targeting and dual-responsive release of loaded-thera...

The excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a hallmark associated with the initiation and progression of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which execrably form a vicious cycle of ROS and inflammation to continually promote disease progression. Here, the gold nanoparticles-embedded ceria nanoparticles (Au/CeO2) with enhanced antioxidant activitie...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is critically related to aging and severely threatens human lives. To better explore the effects of aging on CRC progression and therapy outcome, a reliable aging subtypes identification of CRC is urgently desired. Here, 28 aging-related genes associated with the CRC prognosis were selected by univariate Cox analyses. Based...

Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Tumor metastasis and CD8⁺ T cell infiltration play a crucial role in CRC patient survival. It is important to determine the etiology and mechanism of the malignant progression of CRC to develop more effective treatment strategies. Methods We cond...

Selectively generating active free radical (AFR) in tumor microenvironment (TME) can promote irreversible oxidation of biomolecules and damage tumor cells, resulting in effective tumor inhibition. However, therapeutic efficacy of AFR-based tumor suppression approaches is often limited by insufficient amount of H2O2 or O2 within TME. To overcome thi...

The overproduction of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) is highly associated with a variety of inflammatory diseases. Nevertheless, few treatments are clinically available to address this issue. Developing new artificial enzymes with RONS scavenging activities might be a promising strategy to treat inflammation. Here, we report a nanosize...

Gene therapy is a promising approach for treating tumors. Conventional approaches of DNA delivery depending on non-viral or viral vectors are unsatisfactory due to the concerns of biosafety and cell-targeting efficiency. The question how to deliver DNA into tumor cells efficiently and selectively is a major technological problem in tumor gene thera...

Wound Healing In article number 2201108, Zheng Wang, Lin Wang, and co‐workers develop a self‐hydrophobized adhesive with robust underwater adhesion, resembling a mechanism underpinning the underwater adhesion of mussel foot proteins. This adhesive possesses multiple advantages outperforming commercial adhesives, such as in vivo wound healing‐promot...

Silk sericin, a natural protein extracted from silkworm cocoons, has been extensively studied and utilized in the biomedical field because of its superior biological activities and controllable chemical-physical properties. Sericin is biocompatible and naturally cell adhesive, enabling cell attachment, proliferation, and differentiation in sericin-...

Given that adhesion‐resistance of water severely weakens the bonding strength of tissue adhesives, instant adhesion to wet biological tissue surfaces remains challenging. Inspired by the robust underwater adhesion of natural creatures (such as mussels and barnacles whose underwater adhesion derives from the synergy of hydrophobic and adhesive matri...

Activity enhancement of gene-editing toolsets is critical not only to reverse the intractable endogenous mutagenesis, but also to develop new therapeutic modalities for clinical translation. However, the gene editing efficiency was often not fully satisfactory due to the deficient catalytic activity of CRISPR protein. Herein, we report a cocatalysi...

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. However, due to the heterogeneity of CRC, the clinical therapy outcomes differ among patients. There is a need to identify predictive biomarkers to efficiently facilitate CRC treatment and prognosis. Methods: The expression profiles from Gene Expres...

Background Oxidative stress contributes to retina ganglion cells (RGCs) loss in variety of ocular diseases, including ocular trauma, ocular vein occlusion, and glaucoma. Scavenging the excessed reactive oxygen species (ROS) in retinal neurovascular unit could be beneficial to RGCs survival. In this study, a polydopamine (PDA)-based nanoplatform is...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a major cause accounting for chemotherapy failure and recurrence of malignant tumors. A prominent mechanism underlying MDR is overexpression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp, a drug efflux pump). Promoting drug delivery efficacy by targeting tumor and concurrently suppressing drug efflux through down-regulating P-gp emerges as...

Distant metastases and chemotherapy repellency are the key causes of colorectal cancer (CRC)-related mortality. Regorafenib, an oral multi-kinase inhibitor approved for treating advanced CRC with distant metastases and/or chemo-resistance, however only improves median overall survival by 1.4 months. Such limited therapeutic effect is likely due to...

Chemotherapy is one of the major approaches for the treatment of metastatic lung cancer. However, systemic chemotherapy is limited by poor therapeutic efficiency and severe toxic side effects, due to the extremely low delivery efficacy and non-specificity of anticancer drugs. Herein, we report a sericin microparticles enveloped with metal-organic n...

Cancer chemotherapy is challenged by multidrug resistance (MDR) mainly attribute to overexpressed transmembrane efflux pump P-glycoprotein (P-gp) in cancer cells. Improving drug delivery efficacy while co-delivering P-gp inhibitors to suppress drug efflux is an often-used nano-strategy for combating MDR, which is however challenged by cascaded bio-...

Immunogenic chemotherapy (IC) is a type of chemotherapy where certain chemodrugs induce immunogenic cancer cell death (ICD), which in turn arouses T cell antitumor immunity. However, IC concurrently upregulates a key immune suppressor, indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), in both cancer cells and immune cells. IDO-mediated immunosuppression significa...

Regulatory T‐cells (Tregs) play an important role in tumor immunosuppressive network, thus Tregs‐targeted strategy is expected to enhance antitumor immunity and improve the effect of immunotherapy. Short peptide P60 can bind to the forkhead box protein P3 (Foxp3), a crucial transcriptional regulator for the development and inhibitory function of Tr...

The purpose of developing novel anti-cancer drug delivery systems (DDSs) is to efficiently carry and release drugs into cancer cells and minimize side effects. In this work, based on hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticle (HMSN) and charge-reversal property, a pH/GSH-dual-sensitive DDS named [email protected](cit) was reported. HMSN encapsulated DOX...

The integration of diagnostic and therapeutic functions in a nanoplatform has been a rapidly emerging method in the management of cancer. The application of imaging technology paves the way to track the pharmacokinetics of the nanoplatforms, to guide the treatment, and to monitor the therapeutic processes and outcomes. Herein, we reported a novel t...

In this paper, a targeting hyaluronic acid (HA)/mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) based drug delivery system (DDS) with dual-responsiveness was prepared for cancer therapy. To avoid the side reaction between the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) and HA, host-guest interaction was applied to fabricate the DDS named DOX@MSN-SS-N=C-H...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a key issue accounting for ineffectiveness of cancer chemotherapy. Numerous multifunctional nanocarriers have been developed to increase drug delivery efficacy and inhibit drug efflux for overcoming cancer drug resistance. However, limited success has been achieved in clinic because of nanocarriers' complicated multi-s...

Negative-to-positive charge-reversal strategy employed in anti-cancer drug delivery systems (DDSs) can improve the utilization of the drugs as well as reduce their side effects efficiently. In this article, a complex DDS named DOX@MSN-ZnO-PLL-PLL(DMA) was prepared. Doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) was loaded in mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs)...

Chemotherapy effectiveness is greatly challenged by chemodrugs' intrinsic pathological interactions with tumor cells, which enhance cancer stemness, invasiveness and acquired drug resistance. In article number 1801987, Guobin Wang, Zheng Wang, Lin Wang, and co‐workers construct a redox‐responsive, celecoxib‐modified nanosystem that efficiently enha...

Chemotherapy is a major therapeutic option for cancer patients. However, its effectiveness is challenged by chemodrugs' intrinsic pathological interactions with residual cancer cells. While inducing cancer cell death, chemodrugs enhance cancer stemness, invasiveness, and drug resistance of remaining cancer cells through upregulating cyclooxygenase‐...

In article number 1800785, Guobin Wang, Shuai Wang, Zheng Wang, Lin Wang, and co‐workers fabricate a versatile nanoplatform composed of gold‐nanodot‐decorated hollow carbon nanospheres with hyaluronic acid coating (AuHCNs‐HA). Such a nanoplatform serves as a trimodal drug delivery and therapeutic system. Using this system, their work reveals that w...

In this study, a novel drug delivery system (HMSNs-SS-HA) based on hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs) was developed for delivering anticancer drug (i.e., doxorubicin (DOX)) to targeted tumour cells by using disulfide bonds as redox-sensitive linkers and hyaluronic acid (HA) molecules as both capping and targeting agents. Well-dispersed...

Since heterogeneity affects many functional aspects of a tumor, a way to overcome it is to arm nanosized drug delivery systems (nanoDDS) with diverse functions required to shatter heterogeneity. However, it remains technically challenging to fabricate a nanocarrier possessing all required functions. Here we propose a modular strategy for generating...

Despite the therapeutic usefulness of near‐infrared irradiation (NIR)‐induced potent photothermal effects (PTE) and photodynamic effects (PDE), they inevitably damage normal tissues, often posing threat to life when treating tumors adjacent to key organs or major blood vessels. In this study, the frequently overlooked, “weak” PTE and PDE (no killin...

Due to the difference of pH values between normal tissues, tumor tissues and intracellular environments, DOX@MSN-CD-PEG, a stepwise-acid-active organic/inorganic hybrid drug delivery system (DDS) was reported in this article. The inorganic mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) was introduced for loading of doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX). Then organ...

This article describes a novel reduction degradable supramolecular nanoparticle gene delivery system via host-guest interaction based on cyclodextrin-conjugated polyaspartamide with disulfide linkage (Pasp-SS-CD) and adamantyl-terminated polyethylenimine (Ad4-PEI). The reduction responsiveness of Pasp-SS-CD and the Pasp-SS-CD/Ad4-PEI/pDNA supramole...

It is a great challenge to fabricate a gene carrier system containing multiple functional components to overcome the multiple bio-barriers during the gene delivery process. In this work, we developed a supramolecular approach to construct a versatile gene delivery system using two modules with specific functions. By atom transfer radical polymeriza...

Amphiphilic aliphatic amines grafted konjac glucomannan (KGM-g-AH8, KGM-g-AH12 and KGM-g-AH18) micelles were prepared via a simple two-step synthesis with Schiff’s base as the “switch” to achieve intracellular acid-triggered curcumin release. The KGM-g-AH8 self-assembled into spherical nano-micelles (107.6 ± 11.6 nm) in aqueous medium, and presente...

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) holds great promise in tumor treatment. Nevertheless, it remains highly desirable to develop easy-to-fabricated PDT systems with improved tumor accumulation/internalization and timely therapeutic feedback. Here, we report a tumor acidity responsive chimeric peptide for enhanced PDT and noninvasively real-time apoptosis im...

Sericin-wrapped mesoporous silica nanoparticles (SMSNs) with pH and protease dual responsiveness are successfully fabricated as a lysosome-targeting drug delivery system by Guobin Wang, Lin Wang, Zheng Wang, and co-workers in article number 1602567. Such a dual responsive system offers a rapid doxorubicin release in lysosomes, which bypasses the me...

In this work, dextran, a polysaccharide with excellent biocompatibility, is applied as the "gatekeeper" to fabricate the pH-sensitive dextran/mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) based drug delivery systems for controlled intercellular drug release. Dextran encapsulating on the surface of MSNs is oxidized by NaIO4 to obtain three kinds of dextran...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) and adverse side effects are the major challenges facing cancer chemotherapy. Here we report a pH/ protease dually responsive, Sericin-coated Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles (SMSNs) for lysosomal delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) to overcome MDR and reduce systemic toxicity. Sericin, a natural protein from silkworm cocoons,is...

Extensive efforts and numerous methodologies have been explored to develop safe and efficient gene carriers that are capable of overcoming multiple extra- and intracellular barriers during the transfection process. However, it is a great challenge to fabricate a gene carrier system containing multiple functional components. In this work, we propose...

En route to target cells, a gene carrier faces multiple extra- and intracellular hurdles that would affect delivery efficacy. Although diverse strategies have been proposed to functionalize gene carriers for individually overcoming these barriers, it is challenging to generate a single multi-functional gene carrier capable of surmounting all these...

Suitable protection strategies utilized in anticancer drug delivery systems enable carriers to reach their targeted positions and release drugs intracellularly more effectively. In this study, a novel “stealthy” chitosan (CHI)/mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) based complex system, named DOX@MSN-SS-CHI-PEG, was developed for tumor-triggered intr...

It is a great challenge to arrange multiple functional components into one gene vector system to overcome the extra- and intracellular obstacles for gene therapy. In this study, we developed a supramolecular approach for constructing a versatile gene delivery system composed of adamantyl-terminated functional polymers and a β-cyclodextrin based pol...

The severe cytotoxicity of cancer chemotherapy drugs limits their clinical applications. Various protein-based nanoparticles with good biocompatibility have been developed for chemotherapy drug delivery in hope of reducing drugs' side effects. Sericin, a natural protein from silk, has no immunogenicity and possesses diverse bioactivities that have...

Statement of significance: Biodegradable hydrogels have been widely studied for cell therapy and tissue regeneration. Herein, we report a novel thermosensitive injectable carboxymethyl chitin (CMCH) hydrogel for 3D cell culture, which was synthesized homogeneously from the bioactive natural chitin through the "green" process avoiding using organic...

In this work, a novel pH-sensitive drug delivery system based on modified dextrin coated mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs), DOX@MSN-DDA-CL, are prepared. The dextrin grafting on the surface of MSNs is oxidized by KIO4 to obtain dextrin dialdehyde, which is then cross-linked by tetraethylenepentamine through a pH-sensitive Schiff's base. Under...

The pH-sensitive tertiary amino groups were introduced to synthesize temperature and pH dual-sensitive degradable polyaspartamide derivatives (phe/DEAE-g-PHPA) containing pendant aromatic structures and ionizable tertiary amino groups. The thermo/pH-responsive behavior of phe/DEAE-g-PHPA polymer can be tuned by adjusting the graft copolymer composi...

Sericin, a major component of silk, has a long history of being discarded as a waste during silk processing. The value of sericin for tissue engineering is underestimated and its potential application in regenerative medicine has just begun to be explored. Here we report the successful fabrication and characterization of a covalently-crosslinked 3D...

Novel reducible and degradable brushed PDMAEMA (poly(2-(dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate)) derivatives were synthesized and evaluated as nonviral gene delivery vectors. First, alkyne-functional poly(aspartic acid) with a disulfide linker between the propargyl and backbone [P(Asp-SS-AL)] was synthesized. Second, linear low molecular weight (LMW) mo...

Polyaspartamide-based disulfide-containing brushed polyethylenimine derivatives P(Asp-Az)(X)-SS-PEIs were synthesized via click chemistry and evaluated as nonviral gene delivery carrier. First, azide-functional poly(aspartic acid) derivatives with various azide-group densities and monoalkyne-terminated PEI with disulfide linkages were synthesized....

The development of thermo-responsive and reduction-sensitive polymeric micelles based on an amphiphilic block copolymer poly[(PEG-MEMA)-co-(Boc-Cyst-MMAm)]-block-PEG (denoted PEG-P-SS-HP) for the intracellular delivery of anticancer drugs is reported. PTX, as model drug, was loaded into the PEG-P-SS-HP micelles with an encapsulation efficiency >90%...

Novel reducible disulfide-containing cross-linked polyethylenimines (PEI-SS-CLs) with high molecular weight (M(W)) were synthesized by click chemistry between disulfide-containing dialkyne cross-linkers and the azide functionalized low M(W) PEIs and evaluated as gene carriers. In vitro experiments revealed that the reducible PEI-SS-CLs were less cy...

Cationic polymers have been receiving much attention as non-viral gene vectors. The aqueous mobile phase was optimized in combination with Shodex OHpak SB columns for size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) analysis of disulfide-containing poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) derivatives used in gene delivery. Addition of acetonitrile in mobile phase was shown t...

Reducible disulfide-containing hyperbranched PEI-SS-HP was synthesized via click chemistry and evaluated as nonviral gene carrier. The structure of the polymers was confirmed by (1)H NMR and FTIR. It was shown that the PEI-SS-HP was able to bind plasmid DNA to positively charged nanoparticles. The reduction sensitivity of the PEI-SS-HP was confirme...

Click chemistry has attracted great attentions since its concept was introduced in less than a decade, because the click chemistry reaction can be carried out under mild and simple reaction conditions, resulting in high reaction efficiency with easy post-treatment for the obtained products. In this review, the synthesis of biomedical polymers using...

Novel reducible disulfide-containing cross-linked polyethylenimines (PEI-SS-CLs) were synthesized via click chemistry and evaluated as nonviral gene delivery vectors. First, about four azide pendant groups were introduced into a low-molecular-weight (LMW) PEI (1.8 kDa) to get an azide-terminated PEI. Then, click reaction between a disulfide-contain...

A series of thermosensitive ABA type triblock poly(ε-caprolactone)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL-PNIPAAm-PCL) copolymers with different molecular weights were synthesized by the combination of ring opening polymerization and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. The critical micelle conc...