Recent Advances in Nanomaterials with Inherent Optical and Magnetic Properties for Bioimaging and Imaging-Guided Nucleic Acid Therapy

Nucleic acid therapy is and will continue to be of great interest in cancer treatment. The development of nanocarriers with high nucleic acid loading capacity, low toxicity, and specific targeting, with excellent pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic profiles, will enable us to realize safe and effective nucleic acid therapy. Tremendous efforts have been directed toward the production of optimized theranostic nanocarriers that can simultaneously provide treatment and real-time monitoring to aid researchers and physicians in making adaptation strategies during early drug development and patient's treatment, respectively. In this review, several nanomaterials with inherent optical and magnetic properties, developed for bioimaging and imaging-guided nucleic acid therapies, are introduced and discussed. In each subsection, the unique characteristics of the corresponding theranostic nanomaterials are reviewed and discussed with examples. Finally, we present the remaining challenges that must be addressed and provide our opinions on the future of nanomaterial medicines for bioimaging and imaging-guided nucleic acid therapy.