NIR-Triggered Chemo-Photothermal Therapy by Thermosensitive Gold Nanostar@Mesoporous Silica@Liposome-Composited Drug Delivery Systems
Zheng Cai, Yingwen Zhang, Zhimei He, Liping Jiang, Jun‐Jie Zhu
Abstract
Multimodal therapeutic strategy that combines drug delivery with other treatments (e.g., photodynamic therapy) is highly desired for biomedical applications. Here, we engineer a promising versatile platform based on gold nanostar liposome-entrapped mesoporous silica core-shell nanostructure (GSMS@lip). This system not only served as a container for therapeutic drugs (hydrophilic doxorubicin and hydrophobic docetaxel), but also had high photothermal conversion efficiency. Specifically, the thermosensitive liposome wrapping around mesoporous silica acted as a gatekeeper to encapsulate the drug molecules within the GSMS/Dox/Doc@lip drug delivery system. After exposure to near-infrared (NIR) laser, gold nanostar significantly raised the ambient temperature via photothermal conversion, thereby rupturing the thermosensitive liposomes and subsequently triggering the drug release. Benefiting from the combined chemo-photothermal therapy, this composite system showed enhanced cytotoxicity to MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells. Furthermore, effective drug release and synergistic inhibition of tumor growth were achieved after intratumoral injection of GSMS/Dox/Doc@lip followed by NIR laser irradiation. The proposed multifunctional drug delivery system is capable of codelivering hydrophilic-hydrophobic drugs, providing a potential strategy for multimodal tumor therapies.