Anti-EGFR Peptide-Conjugated Triangular Gold Nanoplates for Computed Tomography/Photoacoustic Imaging-Guided Photothermal Therapy of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is difficult to cure because of the high recurrence rate and the side effects of current treatments. It is urgent to develop a new treatment that is safer and more effective than current treatments against NSCLC. Herein, we constructed anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) peptide-conjugated PEGylated triangular gold nanoplates (TGN-PEG-P75) as a targeting photothermal therapy (PTT) agent to treat NSCLC under the guidance of computed tomography (CT) and photoacoustic (PA) imaging. The surface of TGNs is successfully conjugated with a novel peptide P75 that has the specific affinity to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). It is found that the EGFR is overexpressed in NSCLC cells. The TGN-PEG-P75 has uniform edge length (77.9 ± 7.0 nm) and neutrally charged surface. The cell uptake experiments demonstrate remarkable affinity of the TGN-PEG-P75 to high EGFR expression cells than low EGFR expression cells (5.1-fold). Thanks to the strong near-infrared absorbance, high photothermal conversion efficiency, and the increased accumulation in tumor cells via the interaction of P75 and EGFR, TGN-PEG-P75 exhibits 3.8-fold superior therapeutic efficacy on HCC827 cells than TGN-PEG. The in vivo CT/PA dual-modal imaging of the TGN-PEG-P75 is helpful in selecting the optimal treatment time and providing real-time visual guidance of PTT. Furthermore, treatments on HCC827 tumor-bearing mouse model demonstrate that the growth of NSCLC cells can be effectively inhibited by the TGN-PEG-P75 through PTT, indicating the great promise of the nanoplatform for treating NSCLC in vivo.

AOT direct and reverse micelles as a reaction media for anisotropic silver nanoparticles functionalized with folic acid as a photothermal agent on HeLa cells

“…AgNPs have photothermal and cytotoxic properties, which can be used to generate a synergistic effect [61,65,66], which leads to the death of cancer cells. The type of nanostructures that have frequently been used in the field of biomedicine includes nanospheres, nanowires, nanorods, nanoplates and nanocubes [2,22,25,50,56,74]. In order to assure the selectivity of NPs in this type of therapies, it is necessary to functionalize NPs with a molecule that gives them the ability to interacting selectively with cancer cells.…”

Interactions Between Tumor Biology and Targeted Nanoplatforms for Imaging Applications

“…However, Ab production is difficult and costly, and Abs have rather low tumor penetration due to their large size. Therefore, a short peptide sequence (P75) was introduced as an EGFR‐targeting peptide and used for CT/photoacoustic dual‐modality image‐guided photothermal therapy, Zhao et al161 designed P75‐modified triangular gold NSs (P75‐PEG‐TGN). The in vitro and in vivo results showed high affinity to EGFR + cancer cells, and increased accumulation on the tumor cell surface.…”

Peptide‐Based Supramolecular Nanodrugs as a New Generation of Therapeutic Toolboxes against Cancer

“…[93] Experimental results have shown their favorable therapeutic efficacy for treating non-small cell lung cancer. [93] Experimental results have shown their favorable therapeutic efficacy for treating non-small cell lung cancer.…”