A New Treatment Modality for Rheumatoid Arthritis: Combined Photothermal and Photodynamic Therapy Using Cu_7.2S₄ Nanoparticles

Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a worldwide inflammatory disease that seriously threatens human health and needs more effective treatment approaches. Near infrared (NIR) light can efficiently penetrate inflamed joints affected by RA, so phototherapy, including photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT), may provide new opportunities. In this work, the unique Cu S nanoparticles (NPs) are prepared for RA treatment enlightened by the fact that copper (Cu)-based nanomaterials can simultaneously serve as PTT agents and photosensitizers (for PDT). Meanwhile, Cu can promote ostogenesis and chondrogenesis. The Cu S NPs combined with NIR (808 nm, 1 W cm ) irradiation not only achieve better bone preservation, including higher bone mineral density (BMD) and bone volume/total volume, but also inhibit inflamed synovial invasion, cartilage erosion, and expression of proinflammatory cytokines in vivo. Moreover, the Cu S NPs can effectively kill clinical pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli to prevent bacterial infection during intra-articular injection. Therefore, the combined PTT and PDT using the multifunctional Cu S NPs could be a novel RA treatment modality with full potential.

Recent Advances in Nanotheranostics for Treat‐to‐Target of Rheumatoid Arthritis

“…In parallel, the photothermal conversion agents covert NIR light into localized heat for destroying disease regions 123,124. For RA treatment, NIR light with particular penetration depth can penetrate the inflamed joints, ensuring the treatment effect of nanomaterials in PDT and PTT 125…”

“…g) Representative micro‐CT images of arthritis paws in Cu 7.2 S 4 + NIR, Cu 7.2 S 4 , and control groups. Reproduced with permission 125. Copyright 2018, Wiley‐VCH.…”

“…Lu et al prepared unique Cu 7.2 S 4 NPs which used novel l ‐cysteine (Cys) to assist CuS NPs by a facile one‐step wet chemical method and they combined PDT with PTT in the treatment of RA for the first time (Figure 4e). 125 To further investigate the PTT effect, Cu 7.2 S 4 NPs gradient concentrations were exposed to 808 nm irradiation. The temperature of 500 µg mL −1 Cu 7.2 S 4 solution reached 55 °C while the highest temperature of dd H 2 O with the same condition only reached 32 °C after 10 min irradiation.…”

Graphene-modified CePO4 nanorods effectively treat breast cancer-induced bone metastases and regulate macrophage polarization to improve osteo-inductive ability

“…As compared with radiotherapy and chemotherapy, photothermal therapy (PTT) attracted increasing attention because of its highly e cient antitumor effect, precise spatial-temporal selectivity and no harm to healthy tissues and organs (17)(18)(19). A variety of photothermal agents, such as copper-palladium alloys (19), graphene (20), carbon dots (21), magnetic nanoparticles (22) and Cu7.2S4 Nanoparticles (23) were developed for tumour therapy. The near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation signi cantly elevates the local temperatures around photothermal agents to kill cancer cells via hyperthermia, and inhibit the expression of the metastasis-related factors such as matrix metalloproteinase, twist and transforming growth factor-β1 (24).…”

Gene therapy in rheumatoid arthritis: Strategies to select therapeutic genes

“…Progress in the better understanding of RA pathophysiology has led to the development of new biological therapeutic targets, which allow disease modification by targeting immunological mediators as the main source of many side effects of the disease (Adriaansen, Vervoordeldonk, & Tak, 2006). The new biological therapeutic methods can be divided into several classes including treatment of bisphosphonates (Breuil & Euller-Ziegler, 2006), oral tolerance (Toussirot, 2002), nanotechnology, photodynamic therapy (Lu et al, 2018), stem cell therapy (Snowden, Kapoor, & Wilson, 2008), and gene therapy ( Table 1). The ability to make specified modifications in the genome to treat some diseases is one of the medical goals as an alternative therapy.…”