Abstract

Owing to strong and tunable surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect and good biocompatibility, gold nanoparticles have been suggested to be a versatile platform for a broad range of biomedical applications. In this study, a new nanoplatform of thermo-responsive polymer encapsulated gold nanorods incorporating indocyanine green (ICG) was designed to couple the photothermal properties of gold nanorods (AuNRs) and the photodynamic properties of ICG to enhance the photodynamic/photothermal combination therapy (PDT/PTT). In addition to the significantly increased payload and enhancing photostability of ICG, the polymer shell in the nanoplatform also has thermo-responsive characteristics that can control the release of drugs at tumour sites upon the laser irradiation. On the basis of these improvements, the nanoplatform strongly increased drug aggregation at the tumour site and improved the photothermal/photodynamic therapeutic efficacy. These results suggest that this nanoplatform would be a great potential system for tumour imaging and antitumour therapy.

Highlights

  • Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a photobased therapeutic modality with three essential components for the killing of malignant cells by producing highly reactive oxygen species, especially singlet oxygen (1O2), when exposed to light of a suitable wavelength. [1,2,3,4] The efficacy of PDT depends almost entirely on the generation of 1O2 created byOver the past decade, many different types of gold nanoparticles have been reported, such as gold nanorods, gold nanostars and gold nanotriangles [9, 10]

  • Characterization and properties of the Nanocom‐indocyanine green (ICG) In a typical experiment, Gold nanorods (AuNRs) were synthesized according to the seed-mediated template-assisted protocol with some modifications

  • Combined with the results of cellular uptake, these results suggested that the Photothermal therapy (PTT)/PDT combination effect and enhanced cellular uptake are responsible for the improved therapeutic efficiency of Nanocom-ICG

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Summary

Introduction

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a photobased therapeutic modality with three essential components (light, photosensitizer and oxygen) for the killing of malignant cells by producing highly reactive oxygen species, especially singlet oxygen (1O2), when exposed to light of a suitable wavelength. [1,2,3,4] The efficacy of PDT depends almost entirely on the generation of 1O2 created byOver the past decade, many different types of gold nanoparticles have been reported, such as gold nanorods, gold nanostars and gold nanotriangles [9, 10]. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a photobased therapeutic modality with three essential components (light, photosensitizer and oxygen) for the killing of malignant cells by producing highly reactive oxygen species, especially singlet oxygen (1O2), when exposed to light of a suitable wavelength. Photosensitizers have been intensively studied for in vitro/in vivo fluorescence imaging and have shown great potential in PDT/PTT combination therapy when incorporated into gold nanoparticles [19,20,21]. Combination therapy has been considered a promising strategy to improve the therapeutic efficiency and minimize side effects. Drug release from nanoparticles is induced only when stimuli are applied, including temperature, pH, light and ultrasound, preserving the bioactivity of the loaded drug and minimizing cytotoxic effects [26,27,28,29]. It is promising for research workers to design a nanoprobe with high drug loading that can release the drug to the targeted tumours

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