Combination of chemotherapy and photothermal methods for in vitro ablation of MCF-7 cancer cells using crinkly core–shell structure MoS2/C@SiO2 nanospheres

Abstract

MoS2/C@SiO2 spheres were successfully synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal method using silica as the template, sodium molybdate as the Mo source and glucose as the carbon precursor. In this paper, the antitumor ability of MoS2/C@SiO2 and C@SiO2 nanospheres was evaluated through the photothermal effect induced by near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and the drug loading and release behaviors of the model drug doxorubicin (DOX). The photothermal conversion efficiency (η) of MoS2/C@SiO2 of 42.5% was 1.2 times that of C@SiO2 (34.7%), which indicated its significant photothermal effect. The drug loading of MoS2/C@SiO2 of 46.5% was much higher than that of C@SiO2 (12.4%); it was 3.75 times that of C@SiO2. The cumulative drug release of MoS2/C@SiO2 and C@SiO2 under a simulated acidic tumor environment and NIR irradiation was 58.9% and 27.29%, respectively. Moreover, the cell viability assays verified that MoS2/C@SiO2-DOX had excellent antitumor ability under the co-stimulation of endogenous (pH) and exogenous (NIR) compared with C@SiO2-DOX. The experimental results showed that the survival rate of cancer cells in MoS2/C@SiO2-DOX under coordinated treatment was only 19.4%, while that of C@SiO2-DOX was 24.6%.