Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a common and fatal disease that can severely affect cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Generally speaking, AKI is related to the damage caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) to kidney cells. Therefore, the regulation of ROS is expected to reduce the risk of chemotherapy-related AKI, but the cost will often affect the efficacy of chemotherapy.



In view of this, Professor Ling Daishun of Zhejiang University reported a kind of cerium oxide nanoparticles (CNPs) with adjustable catalytic activity, which can prevent chemotherapy-induced AKI without interfering with chemotherapeutics.





Key points of this article:

(1) In the renal cortex, CNPs have catalytic activity that can decompose hydrogen peroxide, and then activate the Nrf2/Keap1 signaling pathway to regulate ROS-related genes, thereby restoring redox homeostasis to protect the renal tubules.





(2) In the acidic tumor microenvironment, because excessive H+ destroys the re-exposure of its active catalytic sites, CNPs will become inert and will not affect the ROS generation and cancer cell killing effect mediated by chemotherapy. In summary, CNPs can be used as a ROS regulator to play a huge role in the clinical prevention and treatment of AKI in cancer patients.









references:

Qinjie Weng. et al. Catalytic activity tunable ceria nanoparticles prevent chemotherapy-induced acute kidney injury without interference with chemotherapeutics. Nature Communications. 2021

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21714-2