Rapid Degradation and High Renal Clearance of Cu₃BiS₃ Nanodots for Efficient Cancer Diagnosis and Photothermal Therapy in Vivo

Abstract

A key challenge for the use of inorganic nanomedicines in clinical applications is their long-term accumulation in internal organs, which raises the common concern of the risk of adverse effects and inflammatory responses. It is thus necessary to rationally design inorganic nanomaterials with proper accumulation and clearance mechanism in vivo. Herein, we prepared ultrasmall Cu3BiS3 nanodots (NDs) as a single-phased ternary bimetal sulfide for photothermal cancer therapy guided by multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) due to bismuth's excellent X-ray attenuation coefficient. We then monitored and investigated their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. We also used CT imaging to demonstrate that Cu3BiS3 NDs can be quickly removed through renal clearance, which may be related to their small size, rapid chemical transformation, and degradation in an acidic lysosomal environment as characterized by synchrotron radiation-based X-ray absorption near-edge structure spectroscopy. These results reveal that Cu3BiS3 NDs act as a simple but powerful "theranostic" nanoplatform for MSOT/CT imaging-guided tumor ablation with excellent metabolism and rapid clearance that will improve safety for clinical applications in the future.

Cellular uptake of nanoparticles: journey inside the cell

“…241 Rapid chemical transformation and degradation in an acidic lysosomal environment of Cu 3 BiS 3 nanodots was characterized using XANES, confirming their excellent metabolism and rapid clearance, which is a prerequisite for clinical applications. 242 Trends relevant to the use of nanomaterials in cellular trafficking research, organized by country and research funding source over the past decade, are provided in Fig. 12.…”

A new strategy for utilization of NIR from solar energy—Promotion effect generated from photothermal effect of Fe3O4@SiO2 for photocatalytic oxidation of NO

“…), carbon-based materials (carbon nanotubes [16], graphene [9,17,18], etc.) and transition metal nanoparticles (Fe 3 O 4 [19][20][21], Cu 3 BiS 3 [22], Cu 9 S 5 [23] and Ti 8 O 15 [1], etc.) have been studied.…”

Novel Bismuth‐Based Nanomaterials Used for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy

“…Finally, the silica coated Bi 2 S 3 NPs were excreted by defecation (Figure B). Besides Bi 2 S 3 NPs, other Bi‐based NMs with strong NIR absorption properties have also been used for PA imaging, such as Bi 2 Se 3 , Cu 3 BiS 3 , or pure Bi NPs . As a result, PA imaging ability could be enhanced through improving the photothermal performance of Bi‐based NMs, which will be discussed in the phototherapy section as follows.…”