Amphiphilic Near-Infrared Conjugated Polymer for Photothermal and Chemo Combination Therapy

Abstract

Amphiphilic conjugated polymer was designed and utilized as nanocarriers without further general encapsulation using PEGylated materials for photothermal therapy (PTT) and chemotherapy. These nanocarriers have maximum absorption in ideal phototherapeutic window between 800 and 850 nm and excellent photothermal conversion efficiency of 76% at 808 nm. It provides the simultaneous therapy of chemotherapy and PTT with the monitoring of photoacoustic imaging. After combined therapy via tail vein injection, complete remission and no recurrence of tumors can be observed over a course of 20 days, indicating these amphiphilic NPs has great potential for NIR photoacoustic imaging-guided photothermal and chemo combined therapy.

Recent Advances in Nanomaterials-Based Chemo-Photothermal Combination Therapy for Improving Cancer Treatment

“…Remarkable anticancer effect in vivo was achieved by combined chemo-photothermal therapy. Other groups also designed various nano-platforms for combined chemo-photothermal therapy by loading drugs in PPy-based nanomaterials, mainly by physical interactions (Wang Y. et al, 2014; Wang J. et al, 2015; Wang K. et al, 2016; Zhu et al, 2016; Chen X. J. et al, 2017; Yao et al, 2017). Very recently, Hu et al prepared multifunctional PPy/micelle hybrid nanoparticles (denoted as CPT@DOX-UCST/PPy) by polymerizing pyrrole in the shell of polymeric micelles with upper critical solution temperature (UCST) feature (Figure 6; Yang et al, 2018).…”

Conjugated Polymer Materials for Photothermal Therapy

“…The resultant nanoparticles showed strong absorption in NIR region with high PCE (≈50%), and were further employed for PA imaging guided photothermal/chemo combined therapy in mice. Li et al . designed an amphiphilic CP with pendent PEG units, where DOX was encapsulated into the self‐assembled CP without the assistance of other PEGylated materials.…”

Nanocarrier‐Mediated Photochemotherapy and Photoradiotherapy

“…The photoacoustic images have confirmed in vivo temperature increase of more than 20% upon laser irradiation. PAI has also been used in biodistribution studies as demonstrated by Yao et al ( Figure ) . These authors have synthesized NIR absorbing amphiphilic polymers which self‐assemble into micelles that can encapsulate chemotherapeutic drugs such as DOX.…”

“…PAI of tumor‐bearing mice treated with DOX‐NPs after A) 2, B) 12, and C) 24 h; D) quantitative analysis results from PAI of DOX‐NPs accumulated in liver, spleen, kidney, and tumor at different times. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2014 American Chemical Society.…”