In situ growth of MoS2@AuNRs nanoparticles with synergistically enhanced NIR response for controlled drug release

Abstract

MoS2 nanosheets have received a lot of favor in biomedical applications due to their outstanding near-infrared (NIR) responsiveness. However, the poor aqueous dispersibility of MoS2 limits their biomedical application. In this paper, in-situ growth method was applied to integrate gold nanorods (AuNRs) with MoS2, and then MoS2 @AuNRs/HAP/PDA (denoted as MAHP) was prepared by introducing hydroxyapatite (HAP) and polydopamine (PDA) into MoS2 @AuNRs (MA) via self-assembly approach. In-situ grown MA inhibited the aggregation of MoS2 due to the insertion of AuNRs between MoS2 nanolayers. Therefore, MA revealed excellent aqueous dispersibility and synergistically enhanced NIR photothermal responsiveness (42.16% of photothermal conversion efficiency). In addition, MAHP exhibited outstanding DOX loading capacity (80%) and distinct pH-/NIR- dual responsive drug release properties, owing to the structural collapse of HAP in acidic medium and the excellent NIR responsiveness of MA. In vitro cell viability results revealed that MAHP could effectively kill MCF-7 cells under the dual effect of NIR laser irradiation and acidic medium. This paper presents a feasible process to prepare MoS2-based nanoparticles with NIR/pH dual-responsive release properties, which shows great potential in controlled photothermal therapy field.