Traditional treatments for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), such as surgical resection, transplantation, radiofrequency ablation, and chemotherapy are unsatisfactory, and therefore the exploration of powerful therapeutic strategies is urgently needed. Immunotherapy has emerged as a promising strategy for advanced HCC treatment due to its minimal side effects and long-lasting therapeutic memory effects. Recent studies have demonstrated that icaritin could serve as an immunomodulator for effective immunotherapy of advanced HCC. Encouragingly, in 2022, icaritin soft capsules were approved by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) of China for the immunotherapy of advanced HCC. However, the therapeutic efficacy of icaritin in clinical practice is impaired by its poor bioavailability and unfavorable in vivo delivery efficiency. Recently, functionalized drug delivery systems including stimuli-responsive nanocarriers, cell membrane-coated nanocarriers, and living cell-nanocarrier systems have been designed to overcome the shortcomings of drugs, including the low bioavailability and limited delivery efficiency as well as side effects. Taken together, the development of icaritin-based nanomedicines is expected to further improve the immunotherapy of advanced HCC. Herein, we compared the different preparation methods for icaritin, interpreted the HCC immune microenvironment and the mechanisms underlying icaritin for treatment of advanced HCC, and discussed both the design of icaritin-based nanomedicines with high icaritin loading and the latest progress in icaritin-based nanomedicines for advanced HCC immunotherapy. Finally, the prospects to promote further clinical translation of icaritin-based nanomedicines for the immunotherapy of advanced HCC were proposed.

Hydrogels have outstanding research and application prospects in the field of product design. Among them, the design and preparation of cellulose-based functional hydrogels derived from bamboo have attracted increasing research interest. Cellulose-based hydrogels not only have the skeleton function of hydrogels, but also retain excellent specificity, smart structural design, precise molecular recognition ability, and superior biocompatibility. Cellulose-based hydrogels show important application prospects in various fields, such as environmental protection, biomedicine, and energy. What’s more, they are potentially viable for application in food packaging and plant agriculture, such as fertilizers release and crop production. Recently, researchers have extracted cellulose from bamboo and generated a variety of cellulose-based functional hydrogels with excellent properties by various cross-linking methods. In addition, a variety of multifunctional hybrid cellulose-based hydrogels have been constructed by introducing functional components or combining them with other functional materials, thus expanding the breadth and depth of their applications. Herein, we elaborate on advances in the field of cellulose-based hydrogels and highlight their applications in food packaging and plant agriculture. Meanwhile, the existing problems and prospects are summarized. The review provides a reference for the further development of cellulose-based hydrogels.

We report a new ¹³¹I-labeling functional platform for targeted single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging and radiotherapy of breast adenocarcinoma. In this study, polyethyleneimine (PEI) based nanogels (P.NH₂ NGs) were prepared by water/oil polymerization, modified with targeted agent phenylboronic acid (PBA), and labeled with radionuclide ¹³¹I. The NGs without ¹³¹I-labeling own a spherical structure, uniform size distribution, and good cell viability. After ¹³¹I-labeling, the obtained ¹³¹I-PBA-PHP NGs displayed much higher cellular uptake than the non-targeted NGs due to the good softness and fluidity of NGs and the PBA targeting. The in vivo results demonstrated that ¹³¹I-PBA-PHP NGs could specifically target breast cancer cells and efficiently aggregate into xenograft breast adenocarcinoma for tumor SPECT imaging and specific radiotherapy. The developed ¹³¹I-labeling NGs may be used as a promising platform for efficient radioactive theranostic nanoplatform of tumor.