Tumor-targeted near-infrared/ultraviolet-triggered photothermal/gas therapy nanoplatform for effective cancer synergistic therapy.

The integration of photothermal therapy (PTT) and gas therapy (GT) on a nanoplatform shows great potential in cancer treatment. In this paper, a tumor-targeted near-infrared/ultraviolet (NIR/UV) triggered PTT/GT synergistic therapeutic nanoplatform, PB-CD-PLL(NF)-FA, was designed based on Prussian blue (PB) nanoparticles, 5-chloro-2-nitrobenzotrifluoro (NF)-grafted polylysine (PLL(NF)), and folic acid (FA). PB serves as a core to load PLL(NF) through host-guest interaction and can further modify FA. PB-CD-PLL(NF)-FA can be enriched in tumor tissues by passive targeting with enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect and active targeting with FA, and can promote the decomposition of NF under UV light irradiation to achieve the precise release of nitric oxide (NO). PB has a good photothermal conversion efficiency in the NIR region and can be used for PTT. The results of in vivo and in vitro studies showed that PB-CD-PLL(NF)-FA has high photothermal conversion efficiency under NIR laser irradiation, and can release NO on demand under UV light irradiation, which shows a good synergistic therapeutic effect of tumor PTT/GT.