Amphiphilic semiconducting polymer as multifunctional nanocarrier for fluorescence/photoacoustic imaging guided chemo-photothermal therapy

• Published in: Biomaterials Vol. 145; pp. 168 - 177
• Main Authors: Jiang, Yuyan, Cui, Dong, Fang, Yuan, Zhen, Xu, Upputuri, Paul Kumar, Pramanik, Manojit, Ding, Dan, Pu, Kanyi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01-11-2017
• Subjects: Animals; Cell Line, Tumor; Combined Modality Therapy; Drug Carriers - chemistry; Drug delivery; Drug Liberation; Fluorescence; Hyperthermia, Induced; Mice, Inbred BALB C; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Near-infrared fluorescence imaging; Neoplasms - pathology; Neoplasms - therapy; Organ Specificity; Photoacoustic imaging; Photoacoustic Techniques - methods; Phototherapy; Photothermal therapy; Polymers - chemical synthesis; Polymers - chemistry; Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles; Semiconductors; Surface-Active Agents - chemistry; Photothermal therapy; Drug delivery; Photoacoustic imaging; Near-infrared fluorescence imaging; Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles
• ISSN: 0142-9612; 1878-5905
• DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.08.037

Chemo-photothermal nanotheranostics has the advantage of synergistic therapeutic effect, providing opportunities for optimized cancer therapy. However, current chemo-photothermal nanotheranostic systems generally comprise more than three components, encountering the potential issues of unstable nanostructures and unexpected conflicts in optical and biophysical properties among different components. We herein synthesize an amphiphilic semiconducting polymer (PEG-PCB) and utilize it as a multifunctional nanocarrier to simplify chemo-photothermal nanotheranostics. PEG-PCB has a semiconducting backbone that not only serves as the diagnostic component for near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence and photoacoustic (PA) imaging, but also acts as the therapeutic agent for photothermal therapy. In addition, the hydrophobic backbone of PEG-PCB provides strong hydrophobic and π-π interactions with the aromatic anticancer drug such as doxorubicin for drug encapsulation and delivery. Such a trifunctionality of PEG-PCB eventually results in a greatly simplified nanotheranostic system with only two components but multimodal imaging and therapeutic capacities, permitting effective NIR fluorescence/PA imaging guided chemo-photothermal therapy of cancer in living mice. Our study thus provides a molecular engineering approach to integrate essential properties into one polymer for multimodal nanotheranostics.
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