Drug resistance remains a major challenge for anticancer treatment, and one of the major mechanisms of drug resistance is the overexpression of drug efflux transporters in cancer. A new approach for defeating drug resistance is the use of a co-delivery strategy that utilizes small interfering RNA (siRNA) to silence the expression of efflux transporters together with a suitable anticancer drug f...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0187447.].

Using suitable Density functional theory (DFT) methods and models of various sizes and symmetries, we have obtained the aromaticity pattern of infinite Graphene, which is an intrinsically collective effect, by a process of “spatial” evolution. Using a similar process backwards we obtain the distinct aromaticity pattern(s) of finite nanographenes, graphene dots, antidots, and graphene nanoribbon...

Results of classical force field geometry optimizations for twisted graphene nanoribbons with a number of twists N(t) varying from 0 to 7 (the case N(t)=1 corresponds to a half-twist Möbius nanoribbon) are presented in this work. Their structural stability was investigated using the Brenner reactive force field. The best classical molecular geometries were used as input for semiempirical calcul...

The introduction of multiple carbon rings is one of the common ways for graphene modification. Starting from warped C80H30 nanographene, which consists of a number of six- and seven-membered carbon rings (C6 and C7) centering at a five-membered carbon ring (C5), we explored the structure and property variations of its derivatives in which their C7 rings were gradually replaced with C6 rings. Wi...

Poor water-solubility of artesunate (ARS) hampers its clinical application. We here covalently linked ARS to PEGylated nanographene oxide (nGO-PEG) to obtain ARS-modified nGO-PEG (nGO-PEG-ARS) with excellent photothermal effect and dispersibility in physiological environment. nGO-PEG-ARS induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) and peroxynitrite (ONOO─) generations. Although nGO-PEG with near-infr...

Scholl oxidation has become an essential reaction in the bottom-up synthesis of molecular nanographenes. Herein, we describe a controlled by electronic effects on starting substrate (1 a, b). Anthracene-based polyphenylenes lead to spironanographenes under conditions. In contrast, electron-deficient anthracene affords helically arranged nanographene formed two orthogonal dibenzo[fg,ij]phenanthr...