Life is indeed continuously going through the irreversible and inevitable process of aging. The rate of aging process depends on various factors and varies individually. These factors include various environmental stimuli including exposure to toxic chemicals, psychological stress whereas suffering with various illnesses specially the chronic diseases serve as endogenous triggers. The basic underlying mechanism for all kinds of stresses is now known to be manifested as production of excessive ROS, exhaustion of ROS neutralizing antioxidant enzymes and proteins leading to imbalance in oxidation and antioxidant processes with subsequent oxidative stress induced inflammation affecting the cells, tissues, organs and the whole body. All these factors lead to conventional cell death either through necrosis, apoptosis, or autophagy. Currently, a newly identified mechanism of iron dependent regulated cell death called ferroptosis, is of special interest for its implication in pathogenesis of various diseases such as cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, cancers, and various other age-related disorders (ARD). In ferroptosis, the cell death occur neither by conventional apoptosis, necrosis nor by autophagy, rather dysregulated iron in the cell mediates excessive lipid peroxidation of accumulated lethal lipids. It is not surprising to assume its role in aging as previous research have identified some solid cues on the subject. In this review, we will highlight the factual evidences to support the possible role and implication of ferroptosis in aging in order to declare the need to identify and explore the interventions to prevent excessive ferroptosis leading to accelerated aging and associated liabilities of aging.

Millions of patients are suffering from ischemic stroke, it is urgent to figure out the pathogenesis of cerebral ischemia–reperfusion (I/R) injury in order to find an effective cure. After I/R injury, pro-inflammatory cytokines especially interleukin-1β (IL-1β) upregulates in ischemic brain cells, such as microglia and neuron. To ameliorate the inflammation after cerebral I/R injury, nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD), leucine-rich repeat (LRR), and pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is well-investigated. NLRP3 inflammasomes are complicated protein complexes that are activated by endogenous and exogenous danger signals to participate in the inflammatory response. The assembly and activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome lead to the caspase-1-dependent release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-18. Furthermore, pyroptosis is a pro-inflammatory cell death that occurs in a dependent manner on NLRP3 inflammasomes after cerebral I/R injury. In this review, we summarized the assembly and activation of NLRP3 inflammasome; moreover, we also concluded the pivotal role of NLRP3 inflammasome and inhibitors, targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome in cerebral I/R injury.

Currently, the number of confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19 worldwide continues to rise, receiving great concern from the international community. However, there is no specific and widely accepted effective vaccines. The experience in controlling the outbreak in China has proven the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This review aims to evaluate the role of TCM in COVID-19 treatment, hoping to provide references for prevention and control of global pandemic. China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Web of Science, Baidu Scholar, ScienceDirect, Elsevier and PubMed were used to search literatures published from December 2019 to December 2020 by entering the keywords “Traditional Chinese medicine”, “COVID-19″, “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2″, “Pathogenesis”, “Syndrome differentiation”, “Prescriptions” and their combinations. Hence, we have performed an extensive review of research articles, reviews and primary scientific studies to identify TCM against COVID-19. Among clinical treatments of COVID-19, several TCM prescriptions and characteristic therapies have been effectively suggested, the underlying mechanisms of which are mainly involved in antiviral, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and organ-protective effects of multi-components acting on multi-targets at multi-pathways. This review may provide meaningful and feasible information that can be considered for the treatment of COVID-19 pandemic globally.

Liposomes are attractive carriers for targeted and controlled drug delivery receiving increasing attention in cancer photothermal therapy. However, the field of creating near-infrared nanomaterial-liposome hybrid nanocarriers (NIRN-Lips) is relatively little understood. The hybrid nanocarriers combine the dual superiority of nanomaterials and liposomes, with more stable particles, enhanced photoluminescence, higher tumor permeability, better tumor-targeted drug delivery, stimulus-responsive drug release, and thus exhibiting better anti-tumor efficacy. Herein, this review covers the liposomes supported various types of near-infrared nanomaterials, including gold-based nanomaterials, carbon-based nanomaterials, and semiconductor quantum dots. Specifically, the NIRN-Lips are described in terms of their feature, synthesis, and drug-release mechanism. The design considerations of NIRN-Lips are highlighted. Further, we briefly introduced the photothermal conversion mechanism of NIRNs and the cell death mechanism induced by photothermal therapy. Subsequently, we provided a brief conclusion of NIRNs-Lips applied in cancer photothermal therapy. Finally, we discussed a synopsis of associated challenges and future perspectives for the applications of NIRN-Lips in cancer photothermal therapy.