Abstract
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has inadequate treatment approaches and a poor prognosis. It is urgent to develop new treatment approaches for TNBC. The combination of photothermal therapy (PTT) and chemotherapy is a very effective potential therapy for TNBC. However, asynchronous accumulation, unclear efficacy, and toxic side effects hinder the further promotion of this method. Therefore, we designed and constructed a new type of nanocarriers, the cascade release near-infrared imaging (NIFI) & thermal-chemo combination nanoparticles (CNC NPs), that can release drugs through the cascade of ultrasound triggering and pH responding to achieve the synchronous tumor accumulation, monitoring and synergistic treatment of two functional molecules. The key material of CNC NPs is the polydopamine (PDA), which, through self-assembling, forms a rigid shell that contains doxorubicin (DOX) and NIF fluorescent dye IR780 on the surface of the perfluorohexane (PFH) microbubbles. The results show that CNC NPs have a hollow core-shell structure with an average particle size of 97.3 ± 27.2 nm and have exceptional colloidal stability and photothermal conversion efficiency. The NPs can effectively perform cascade drug release through ultrasound triggering and pH responding. CNC NPs have good in vivo biological safety and excellent fluorescence imaging, drug delivery, and therapeutic abilities in the TNBC models. These results provide an experimental basis for the development of new clinical treatment methods for TNBC.
Highlights
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a special high-risk subtype of breast cancer
There is obvious cavitation inside of CNC NPs, due to PFH is vaporized in sample preparation of transmission electron microscope (TEM)
The NPs can enter the systemic circulation through intravenous injection and maintain a prolonged circulation time in vivo
Summary
TNBC is a special high-risk subtype of breast cancer. It is difficult to be treated by endocrine therapy and targeted therapy due to its lack of corresponding targets. There is an urgent need to develop new specific TNBC treatment methods. PTT converts light of a specific spectrum into thermal energy to ablate tumor tissues, and has great advantages such as minimal invasiveness, high specificity, and fewer side effects [5, 6]. NIF fluorescent dyes, which have been applied in clinical [7,8,9,10,11,12], have the advantages of high photothermal conversion efficiency, insignificant toxic and side effect, high metabolizability, and ideal absorption spectrum. A variety of tumor treatment methods combined with PTT have been explored and developed [14,15,16]. The thermal effect produced by PTT can directly ablate tumor tissues and help chemotherapeutic molecules better enter the tumor cells and further intervene the remaining tumor cells, exhibiting a good synergistic effect [17,18,19]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
