Metal phosphorous trichalcogenides (MPX3) are novel 2D nanomaterials that have recently been exploited as efficient photothermal–chemodynamic agents for cancer therapy. As a representative MPX3, FePSe3 has the potential to be developed as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and photoacoustic imaging (PAI) agents due to the composition of Fe and the previously revealed PA signal. Here, a FePSe3‐based theranostic agent, FePSe3@APP@CCM, loaded with anti‐PD‐1 peptide (APP) as the inner component and CT26 cancer cell membrane (CCM) as the outer shell is reported, which acts as a multifunctional agent for MR and PA imaging and photothermal and immunotherapy against cancer. FePSe3@APP@CCM induces highly efficient tumor ablation and suppresses tumor growth by photothermal therapy under near‐infrared laser excitation, which further activates immune responses. Moreover, APP blocks the PD‐1/PD‐L1 pathway to activate cytotoxic T cells, causing strong anticancer immunity. The combined therapy significantly prolongs the lifespan of experimental mice. The multimodal imaging and synergistic therapeutic effects of PTT and its triggered immune responses and APP‐related immunotherapy are clearly demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo experiments. This work demonstrates the potential of MPX3‐based biomaterials as novel theranostic agents.

A combination of chemo- and photothermal therapy has emerged as a promising tactic for cancer therapy. However, the intricacy of accurate delivery and the ability to initiate drug release in specific tumor sites remains a challenging puzzle. Hence, to assure that the chemotherapeutic drug and photothermal agent are synchronously delivered to a tumor area for their synergistic effect, dual-target (RC-12 and PG-6 peptides) functionalized selenium nanoparticles loaded with both doxorubicin (DOX) and indocyanine green (ICG) were designed and successfully synthesized. The as-synthesized nanoparticles exhibited good monodispersity, size stability, and consistent spectral characteristics compared with those of ICG or DOX alone. The nanoparticles underwent self-immolated cleavage under irradiation from a near-IR laser and released the loaded drug owing to sufficient hyperthermia. Moreover, the internalized nanoparticles triggered the overproduction of intracellular reactive oxygen species to induce cell apoptosis. Taken together, this study provides a sequentially triggered nanosystem to achieve precise drug delivery by chemo-photothermal combination.

Herein, we demonstrate baicalin-loaded selenium nanoparticles with a liver-targeting folic acid moiety to treat HBV-infected liver cancer.

Introduction Cancer theragnosis involving cancer diagnosis and targeted therapy simultaneously in one integrated system would be a promising solution of cancer treatment. Herein, a convenient and practical cancer theragnosis agent was constructed by combining gold nanocages (AuNCs) covered with selenium and a chitosan (CS) shell (AuNCs/Se) to incorporate the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) as a multifunctional targeting nanocomposite (AuNCs/DOX@Se-iRGD) for photoacoustic imaging (PAI)-guided chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy that contributes to enhanced anti-cancer efficacy. The novel design of AuNCs/DOX@Se-iRGD gives the nanocomposite two outstanding properties: (1) AuNCs, with excellent LSPR property in the NIR region, act as a contrast agent for enhanced PAI and photothermal therapy (PTT); (2) Se acts as an anti-cancer nanoagent and drug delivery cargo. Methods The photothermal performance of these nanocomposites was evaluated in different concentrations with laser powder densities. These nanocomposites were also incubated in pH 5.3, 6.5, 7.4 PBS and NIR laser to study their drug release ability. The cellular uptake was studied by measuring the Se and Au concentrations inside the cells using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Besides, in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor activity were carried out by cytotoxicity assay MTT and tumor model nude mice, respectively. As for imaging, the PA value and images of these nanocomposites accumulated in the tumor site were sequentially collected at specific time points for 48 h. Results and Discussion The prepared AuNCs/DOX@Se-iRGD showed excellent biocompatibility and physiological stability in different media. In vivo results indicated that the targeting nanocomposite presented the strongest contrast-enhanced PAI signals, which could provide contour and location information of tumor, 24 h after intravenous injection. Likewise, the combined treatment of chemo- and photothermal synergistic therapy significantly inhibited tumor growth when compared with the two treatments carried out separately and showed negligible acute toxicity to the major organs. Conclusion This study demonstrates that AuNCs/DOX@Se-iRGD has great prospect to become a multifunctional anti-tumor nanosystem for PAI-guided chemo- and photothermal synergistic therapy.

The most advantageous and attractive property of photoacoustic imaging is its capability to visualize and differentiate multiple species according to their unique absorbance profiles simultaneously in a single mixture. We here report the pH-sensitive near-infrared (NIR) croconaine (Croc) dyes-loaded copolymeric PEG−PLGA nanoparticles (NPs) for in vivo multiplexed PA imaging and pH-responsive photothermal therapy (PTT) in an orthotopic xenograft model. PEG chains on the polymeric NPs shell were conjugated with iRGD in another set of NPs to realize efficient tumor targeting. The distribution and the intensity of two sets of iRGD-targeted and nontargeted NPs inside tumors are simultaneously imaged and monitored in vivo. Meanwhile, the utilization of iRGD-targeted PPC 815 NPs as a pH-active photothermal agent with promising tumor-inhibition efficacy was demonstrated. As a result, this nanoplatform is capable of assisting multiwavelength unmixing of PA imaging as well as providing remarkable photothermal ablation for anticancer treatment.