Lonidamine (LND) can act on mitochondria and inhibit energy metabolism in cancer cells and therefore has been used together with chemotherapy drugs for synergistically enhanced therapeutic efficacy. However, its use is hindered by the poor solubility and slow diffusion in the cytoplasm. To address these problems, we designed and prepared aqueous dispersible nanoparticles (NPs) containing integrated components including triphenylphosphine (TPP) to target the mitochondria of cells and LND and doxorubicin (DOX) for synergistic cancer treatment and conquering drug resistance. This design allows the NPs to concentrate in the mitochondria of cells, solve the low solubility of LND, and contain very high load of LND and DOX in comparison with previously reported drug-delivery systems based on various carrier nanomaterials. Detailed mechanism studies reveal that TPP-LND-DOX NPs could induce significant reactive oxygen species production, mitochondrial membrane potential decrease, and mitochondrial apoptosis pathway, thereby leading to great cytotoxicity in cancer cells. In vivo anticancer activities indicate that TPP-LND-DOX NPs exhibit the highest efficacy in tumor inhibition among all tested groups and show high effectiveness in drug-resistant model. This work demonstrates the potential use of our TPP-LND-DOX NPs to jointly promote the mitochondria apoptosis pathway and contribute to conquer drug resistance in cancer therapy.

Hybrid nanostructures with combined functionalities can be rationally designed to achieve synergistic effects for efficient cancer treatment. Herein, a multifunctional nanoplatform is constructed, containing an inner core of an anticancer drug MTX surrounding by a nanometer-thin layer of gold as the shell with FeO magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) evenly distributed in the gold layer, and the outermost hybrid LA-PEG-MTX molecules as surface coating agent (denoted as MFG-LPM NPs). This nanocomposite possesses very high drug loading capacity as the entire core is MTX and integrates magnetic- and active- targeting drug delivery, light-controlled drug release, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as photothermal and chemotherapy. With a strong near-infrared (NIR) absorbance at 808 nm, the nanocomposite enables temperature elevation and light-triggered MTX release. In vitro cytotoxicity studies indicate that the strategy of combining therapy leads to a synergistic effect with high cancer cell killing efficacy. In consistency with this, due to the high accumulation of MFG-LPM NPs at tumor site and their combinatorial chemo-photothermal effects, 100% in vivo tumor elimination can be achieved. Additionally, in vivo MRI of tumor-bearing mice demonstrates an impressive performance of MFG-LPM NPs as a T contrast agent. Therefore, such multifunctional nanocomposite has the potential to serve as an excellent theranostic agent that collectively integrates multiple functions for efficient MRI guided cancer diagnosis and treatment.

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In this paper, we reported a ZnO quantum dot (QD) based nano drug delivery system by surface modification of hydrophilic copolymer poly(methacrylate-co-N-isopropylacrylamide-co-polyethylene glycol methyl acrylate) (ZnO@PMNE) that was synthesized by the one step copolymerization method. The ZnO@PMNE nanoparticles (ZnO@PMNE NPs) have excellent stability and photoluminescence performance in water. Moreover, it is temperature responsive and biodegradable in an acid microenvironment. ZnO@PMNE NPs loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) will degrade to zinc ions (Zn2+) and DOX at an acidic tumor microenvironment. Moreover, the cytotoxicity of cancer cells was significantly increased because the ZnO QDs exhibited cytotoxicity postdissolution compared to normal cells, which will achieve a synergistic antitumor effect to improve the therapeutic index.