Tumor phototherapies are light-mediated tumor treatment modalities, which usually refer to tumor photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT). Due to the outstanding spatial-temporal control over treatment through light irradiation, tumor phototherapies display extremely low side effects during treatment and are believed to be a tumor treatment method with a clinical translation potential. However, current tumor phototherapy nanoplatforms face obstacles, including light irradiation-induced skin burning, tumor hypoxia microenvironments, limited light penetration depth, et al. Therefore, one important research direction is developing a tumor phototherapy nanoplatform with multifunctionality and enhanced pharmacological effects to overcome the complexity of tumor treatment. On the other hand, cyclodextrins (CDs) are starch-originated circular oligosaccharides with negligible toxicity and have been used to form supermolecular nanostructures through a host–guest interaction between the inner cavity of CDs and functional biomolecules. In the past few years, numerous studies have focused on CD-based multifunctional tumor phototherapy nanoplatforms with an enhanced photoeffect, responsive morphological transformation, and elevated drug bioavailability. This review focuses on the preparation methods of CD-based tumor phototherapy nanoplatforms and their unique physiochemical properties for improving anti-tumor pharmacological efficacy.

Due to the accompaniment of vascular endothelial inflammation during the occurrence and development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), treatment modalities against vascular endothelial inflammation have been intensively investigated for CVD prevention and/or treatment. Vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) is a typical transmembrane inflammatory protein specifically expressed by inflammatory vascular endothelial. By inhibiting VCAM-1 expression through the miR-126 mediated pathway, vascular endothelial inflammation can be efficiently relieved. Inspired by this, we developed a miR-126-loaded immunoliposome with VCAM-1 monoclonal antibody (VCAM_ab) decorated at its surface. This immunoliposome can be directly targeted to VCAM-1 at the inflammatory vascular endothelial membrane surface and achieve highly efficient treatment against inflammation response. The cellular experiment results showed the immunoliposome had a higher uptake rate towards inflammatory human vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and can significantly downregulate the VCAM-1 expression level of inflammatory HUVECs. In vivo investigation further demonstrated that this immunoliposome displayed a higher accumulation rate at vascular inflammatory dysfunction sites than its non-VCAM_ab-modified counterpart. These results suggest that this novel nanoplatform can effectively deliver miR-126 to vascular inflammatory endothelium, opening a new avenue for the safe and effective delivery of miRNA for potential clinical application.