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Yan Ji,1 Haorong Li,1 Jiguo Li,2 Guangqiang Yang,1 Wenli Zhang,1 Yan Shen,1 Bohui Xu,3 Jianping Liu,1 Jingyuan Wen,4 Wenting Song1 1Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 2Nanjing Miaobang Meiye Enterprise Management Co, LTD, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Pharmacy, Nantong University, Nantong, 226001, People’s Republic of China; 4School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, the University of Auckland, Auckland, New ZealandCorrespondence: Wenting Song, Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, 639 Longmian Avenue, Jiangning District, Nanjing, 211198, People’s Republic of China, Email songwenting908@163.com Jingyuan Wen, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, Email j.wen@auckland.ac.nzPurpose: Acne vulgaris is a chronic inflammatory skin disorder centered on hair follicles, making hair follicle-targeted delivery of anti-acne drugs a promising option for acne treatment. However, current researches have only focused on the delivering to healthy hair follicles, which are intrinsically different from pathologically clogged hair follicles in acne vulgaris.Patients and Methods: Azelaic acid (AZA) micro/nanocrystals with different particle sizes were prepared by wet media milling or high-pressure homogenization. An experiment on AZA micro/nanocrystals delivering to healthy hair follicles was carried out, with and without the use of physical enhancement techniques. More importantly, it innovatively designed an experiment, which could reveal the ability of AZA micro/nanocrystals to penetrate the constructed clogged hair follicles. The anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects of AZA micro/nanocrystals were evaluated in vitro using a RAW264.7 cell model stimulated by lipopolysaccharide and a Cutibacterium acnes model. Finally, both the anti-acne effects and skin safety of AZA micro/nanocrystals and commercial products were compared in vivo.Results: In comparison to commercial products, 200 nm and 500 nm AZA micro/nanocrystals exhibited an increased capacity to target hair follicles. In the combination group of AZA micro/nanocrystals and ultrasound, the ability to penetrate hair follicles was further remarkably enhanced (ER value up to 9.6). However, toward the clogged hair follicles, AZA micro/nanocrystals cannot easily penetrate into by themselves. Only with the help of 1% salicylic acid, AZA micro/nanocrystals had a great potential to penetrate clogged hair follicle. It was also shown that AZA micro/nanocrystals had anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects by inhibiting pro-inflammatory factors and Cutibacterium acnes. Compared with commercial products, the combination of AZA micro/nanocrystals and ultrasound exhibited an obvious advantage in both skin safety and in vivo anti-acne therapeutic efficacy.Conclusion: Hair follicle-targeted delivery of AZA micro/nanocrystals provided a satisfactory alternative in promoting the treatment of acne vulgaris.Keywords: acne vulgaris, azelaic acid, hair follicle, micro/nanocrystals, targeted delivery

Materials with efficient circularly polarized phosphorescences (CPPs) are of potential use in advanced data encryption and anti-counterfeiting, bioimaging, optoelectronic devices and so forth. Herein, a simple method is presented for the preparations of CPP-active micro/nanocrystals with large luminescence dissymmetry factors (glum), high phosphorescence quantum efficiencies (Φp) and tunable emission colors. Diastereomeric IrIII and RuII complexes with chiral (±)-camphorsulfonate counter-anions are readily synthesized and assembled into crystalline microrods, microplates or nanofibers with ordered morphologies. The chir-ality information of chiral counter-anions is efficiently transferred to the metal components to afford CPPs with cyan, green, yellow, or red emission colors and ΦP in the range of 5%–85%. The number of chiral anions is found to play a role in influencing the CPP magnitudes of these crystals. The dicationic RuII and tricationic IrIII complexes show glum values in the 10−2 order, which are much larger with respect to those of monocationic IrIII complexes. Single crystal X-ray analysis is performed to obtain information on the chirality transfer of these materials. In addition, circularly polarized photonic signal waveguiding is demonstrated using the microcrystals of an IrIII complex. This work demonstrates an appealing strategy of constructing chiral micro/nano-architectures for potential applications in chiral nanophotonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]