An
ultrasound-triggered sonodynamic therapy has shown great promise
for cancer therapy. However, its clinical applications are very limited
because the traditional sonosensitizers tend to suffer from very poor
efficiency combined with low retention in cancer cells and low tumor
selectivity. Therefore, sonosensitizers with higher effectivity, higher
tumor cell retention, and higher tumor cell specificity are highly
required. Herein, we constructed a Ti2C(OH)
X
nanosheet, which was a poor sonosensitizer but had
a long circulation in the blood system. However, it was very interesting
to find that the tumor microenvironment could in situ turn Ti2C(OH)
X
nanosheet
into a novel and excellent sonosensitizer with a nanofiber structure
in tumors, exhibiting excellent ability to generate reactive oxygen
species (ROS) under ultrasound. Moreover, the nanofiber structure
made it very difficult to get out of cancer cells, highly enhancing
the retention of the sonosensitizer in the tumor, thereby enabling
it to effectively and selectively kill cancer cells in vivo. Our findings demonstrate that the strategy of the tumor microenvironment
triggering the in situ synthesis of an effective
sonosensitizer in tumor provided a promising means to simultaneously
increase the efficiency, sonosensitizer retention in cancer cells,
and cancer selectivity, thereby effectively killing cancer cells but
causing little damage to healthy tissues via the sonodynamic therapy.
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