Bimodal mesoporous silica is prepared by co-templating method using PEO-b-PLA diblock copolymer and F127 triblock copolymer. The pore size distribution of the mesoporous silica is bimodal, based on small angle X-ray scattering, transmission electron microscopy, and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms analyses, and can be divided into the larger pores, originating from PEO-b-PLA, and the smaller pores, originating from F127. In addition, we are able to ascertain that the F127 triblock copolymer not only produces the smaller pores, but also acts as a swelling agent in the formation of the larger pores. This novel bimodal mesoporous silica is further successfully employed as a drug-carrier for doxorubicin in ambient conditions.
Tumor cell complete extinction is a crucial measure to evaluate antitumor efficacy. The difficulties in defining tumor margins and finding satellite metastases are the reason for tumor recurrence. A synergistic method based on multimodality molecular imaging needs to be developed so as to achieve the complete extinction of the tumor cells. In this study, graphene oxide conjugated with gold nanostars and chelated with Gd through 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-N,N′,N,N′-tetraacetic acid (DOTA) (GO-AuNS-DOTA-Gd) were prepared to target HCC-LM3-fLuc cells and used for therapy. For subcutaneous tumor, multimodality molecular imaging including photoacoustic imaging (PAI) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the related processing techniques were used to monitor the pharmacokinetics process of GO-AuNS-DOTA-Gd in order to determine the optimal time for treatment. For orthotopic tumor, MRI was used to delineate the tumor location and margin in vivo before treatment. Then handheld photoacoustic imaging system was used to determine the tumor location during the surgery and guided the photothermal therapy. The experiment result based on orthotopic tumor demonstrated that this synergistic method could effectively reduce tumor residual and satellite metastases by 85.71% compared with the routine photothermal method without handheld PAI guidance. These results indicate that this multimodality molecular imaging-guided photothermal therapy method is promising with a good prospect in clinical application.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.