Bladder cancer has become the most common malignant urinary carcinoma. Studies have shown that significant antioxidant and bladder cancer-fighting properties of several plant-based diets like Psidium guajava, ginger and amomum, are associated with their high kaempferol content. In this paper, we evaluated the antioxidant and anticancer activities of kaempferol and its mechanism of induction to apoptosis on bladder cancer cells. Our findings demonstrated that kaempferol showed an obvious radical scavenging activity in erythrocytes damaged by oxygen. Kaempferol promoted antioxidant enzymes, inhibited ROS generation and lipid peroxidation and finally prevented the occurrence of hemolysis. Additionally, kaempferol exhibited a strong inhibitory effect on bladder cancer cells and high safety on normal bladder cells. At the molecular level, kaempferol suppressed EJ bladder cancer cell proliferation by inhibiting the function of phosphorylated AKT (p-AKT), CyclinD1, CDK4, Bid, Mcl-1 and Bcl-xL, and promoting p-BRCA1, p-ATM, p53, p21, p38, Bax and Bid expression, and finally triggering apoptosis and S phase arrest. We found that Kaempferol exhibited strong anti-oxidant activity on erythrocyte and inhibitory effects on the growth of cancerous bladder cells through inducing apoptosis and S phase arrest. These findings suggested that kaempferol might be regarded as a bioactive food ingredient to prevent oxidative damage and treat bladder cancer.

Infected burn wounds are characterized by persistent drug‐resistant bacterial infection coupled with an inflammatory response, impeding the wound‐healing process. In this study, an intelligent nanoparticle system (CCM+TTD@ZIF‐8 NPs) was prepared using curcumin (CCM), an aggregation‐induced emission luminogens (TTD), and ZIF‐8 for infection‐induced wound healing. The CCM+TTD@ZIF‐8 NPs showed multiple functions, including bacteria targeting, fluorescence imaging and pH response‐guided photodynamic therapy (PDT), and anti‐inflammatory. The positive charges of ZIF‐8 NPs allowed the targeting of drug‐resistant bacteria in infected wounds, thereby realizing fluorescence imaging of bacteria by emitting red fluorescence at the infected site upon blue light irradiation. The pH‐responsive characteristics of the CCM+TTD@ZIF‐8 NPs also enabled controllable CCM release onto the infected wound site, thereby promoting the specific accumulation of ROS at the infected site, with outstanding bactericidal efficacy against drug‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) strains in vitro/in vivo. Additionally, due to the excellent bactericidal effect and anti‐inflammatory properties of CCM+TTD@ZIF‐8 NPs combined with blue light irradiation, the regeneration of epidermal tissue, angiogenesis, and collagen deposition was achieved, accelerating the healing process of infected burn wounds. Therefore, this CCM+TTD@ZIF‐8 NPs with multifunctional properties provides great potential for infected burn wound healing.

The aims of this study were to prepare a thermosensitive composite hydrogel (TCH) by mixing 24% (w/v) poloxamer 407 (P407), 16% (w/v) poloxamer 188 (P188) and 0.1% (w/v) carbopol 940 (C940), and to determine the effect of natural borneol/ (2-hydroxypropyl)-β-cyclodextrin (NB/HP-β-CD) inclusion complex on the phase transition temperature, mechanical, rheological properties, and release behaviors of the TCH using the tube inversion method, a texture analyzer, a rheometer, and in vitro release , respectively. The results showed that as the concentration of NB/HP-β-CD increased, the phase transition temperature of the TCH was increased from 37.26 to 38.34 °C and the mechanical properties of the TCH showed that the hardness, cohesiveness, strength, and adhesiveness were increased from 0.025 to 0.064 kg, 0.022 to 0.064 kg, 0.110 to 0.307 kg and 0.036 to 0.105 kg, respectively, but the rheological properties of the TCH showed that G′, G′′ and η were decreased from 7,760 to 157.50 Pa, 1,274 to 36.28 Pa and 1,252 to 25.37 Pas, respectively. The in vitro release showed that an increasing NB/HP-β-CD concentration decreased the release rate of NB from the TCH, but the amount of NB released was more than 96% at 60 min, which showed the TCH had good release behavior.

Selenocystine (SeC) has been identified as a novel compound with broad-spectrum anticancer activities. Natural borneol (NB) is a monoterpenoid compound that has been used as a promoter of drug absorption. In the present study, we demonstrated that NB significantly enhanced the cellular uptake of SeC and potentiated its antiproliferative activity on HepG2 cells by induction of apoptosis. NB effectively synergized with SeC to reduce cancer cell growth through the triggering apoptotic cell death. Further mechanistic studies by Western blotting showed that treatment of the cells with NB and SeC activated the intrinsic apoptotic pathway by regulation of pro-survival and pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins. Treatment of the cells with NB and SeC induced the activation of p38MAPK and inactivation of Akt and ERK. NB also potentiated SeC to trigger intracellular ROS generation and DNA strand breaks as examined by Comet assay. Moreover, the thiol-reducing antioxidants effectively blocked the occurrence of cell apoptosis, which confirmed the important role of ROS in cell apoptosis. Taken together, these results reveal that NB strongly potentiates SeC-induced apoptosis in cancer cells by enhancement of cellular uptake and activation of ROS-mediated DNA damage. NB could be further developed as a chemosensitizer of SeC in treatment of human cancers.