Abstract
Biomedical investigations using layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanoparticles have attracted tremendous attentions due to their advantages such as biocompatibility, variable-chemical compositions, anion-exchange capacity, host–guest interactions, and crystallization-dissolution characters. Bio-imaging becomes more and more important since it allows theranostics to combine therapy and diagnosis, which is a concept of next-generation medicine. Based on the unique features mentioned above, LDHs create novel opportunities for bio-imaging and simultaneous therapy with LDHs-based nanohybrids. This review aims to explore the recent advances in multifunctional LDH nanohybrids ranging from synthesis to practical applications for various bio-imaging with therapeutic functions. Furthermore, their potential both as diagnostic agents and drug delivery carriers will be discussed with the improvement in noninvasive bio-imaging techniques.
Highlights
Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have been extensively explored in the nano-bio fields based on their inherent two-dimensional (2D) layered structure, excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
This review presents an overview of LDH nanohybrids along with their various synthetic strategies and potential applications for some representative bio-imaging modalities with therapeutic functions
To understand soft chemistry of LDHs, it is required to describe the structure of brucite mineral Mg(OH)2, where the Mg2+ ion is coordinated with six OH− ligands to form an octahedron crystal structure, and formed octahedrons are bound to another by sharing edges to build up infinite sheets, which are stacked layer by layer to achieve lamellar structure by strong hydrogen bonding
Summary
Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have been extensively explored in the nano-bio fields based on their inherent two-dimensional (2D) layered structure, excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Bio-imaging techniques with high resolution and sensitivity aid in both the detection of diseases and the understanding of biological phenomena. It is rapidly evolving through the convergence of advanced imaging technology, medicine, molecular biology, genetics, cytology, nuclear medicine, chemistry, pharmacology, physics, etc. It is the latest multidisciplinary field that contributes to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease as well as continuous monitoring of post-treatment condition [13,14,15,16,17,18]. The representative bio-imaging modalities in either clinical settings or preclinical research are optical fluorescence imaging [6,9,20,21,22,23,24,25], magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [26,27,28,29] and multimodal imaging [30,31,32,33,34], which has been utilized
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