WS<sub>2</sub>/Polyethylene Glycol Nanostructures for Ultra-Efficient MCF-7 Cancer Cell Ablation and Electrothermal Therapy
Maria Prisca Meivita, Sophia S. Y. Chan, Shao‐Xiang Go, Denise Lee, Nataša Bajalović, Desmond K. Loke
Abstract
Developing novel nanostructures and advanced nanotechnologies for cancer treatment has attracted ever-increasing interest. Electrothermal therapy offers many advantages such as high efficiency and minimal invasiveness, but finding a balance between increasing stability of the nanostructure state and, at the same time, enhancing the nanostructure biodegradability presents a key challenge. Here, we modulate the biodegradation process of two-dimensional-material-based nanostructures by using polyethylene glycol (PEG) via nanostructure disrupt-and-release effects. We then demonstrate the development of a previously unreported alternating current (AC) pulse WS2/PEG nanostructure system for enhancing therapeutic performance. A decrease in cell viability of ∼42% for MCF-7 cells with WS2/PEG was achieved, which is above an average of ∼25% for current electrothermal-based therapeutic methods using similar energy densities, as well as degradation time of the WS2 of ∼1 week, below an average of ∼3.5 weeks for state-of-the-art nanostructure-based systems in physiological media. Moreover, the incubation time of MCF-7 cells with WS2/PEG reached ∼24 h, which is above the average of ∼4.5 h for current electrothermal-based therapeutic methods and with the use of the amount of time harnessed to incubate the cells with nanostructures before applying a stimulus as a measure of incubation time. Material characterizations further disclose the degradation of WS2 and the grafting of PEG on WS2 surfaces. These WS2-based systems offer strong therapeutic performance and, simultaneously, maintain excellent biodegradability/biocompatibility, thus providing a promising route for the ablation of cancer.