New indocyanine green therapeutic fluorescence nanoprobes assisted high-efficient photothermal therapy for cervical cancer

Abstract

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a promising and non-invasive treatment for cancer. As essential factors for PTT, photothermal agents (PTAs) have attracted widespread attention. However, high-efficient and biocompatible fluorescent PTAs are still not enough. In this study, new indocyanine green (IR820) was utilized as a fluorescence agent and a PTA on HeLa cells and subcutaneous cervical cancer models of mouse. To improve PTT effect and biocompatibility of IR820, the amphiphilic polymer Pluronic F-127 (F-127) was utilized to modify free IR820 molecules, to form IR820@F-127 nanoparticles (NPs) by self-assembly method. Fortunately, IR820@F-127 NPs exhibited desirable photothermal properties with high photothermal conversion efficiency of 35.2% and good photothermal stability. Cytotoxicity assay, in vitro and in vivo fluorescence imaging of IR820@F-127 NPs exhibited satisfactory biocompatibility, excellent cellular uptake ability, and bioimaging capability on tumor sites. Meanwhile, IR820@F-127 NPs owned cellular-therapy ability against cervical cancer under 793 nm laser irradiation observed in apoptosis assay. Furthermore, the excellent PTT effect (∼90%) in flow cytometry analysis endowed IR820@F-127 NPs with the ability to ablate subcutaneous cervical tumors on nude mice. The newly formed IR820@F-127 NPs have great potential for anti-tumor therapy and bioimaging of cervical cancer, which lays the foundation for the future development of biomedical applications.