Redox-Hypersensitive Organic Nanoparticles for Selective Treatment of Cancer Cells

The diselenide-containing fluorescent molecules (SeBDP) and antitumor drug paclitaxel (SePTX) were synthesized and used for constructing SeBDP nanoparticles (SeBDP NPs) and SePTX NPs in aqueous solution through nanoprecipitation method. Both SeBDP NPs and SePTX NPs exhibit high stability and excellent reduction-sensitivity. More interestingly, SeBDP and SePTX could coassemble into uniform and spherical nanoparticles (co-NPs) with dual functions of fluorescence imaging and antitumor activity. These organic NPs could be internalized by different cells as revealed by confocal laser microscopy. Importantly, the co-NPs exhibited selectivity of cytotoxicities between cancerous and normal cells. The cellular proliferation inhibition toward tumor cells (including HeLa and MCF-7 cells) was obviously higher than that toward normal cells (BEAS-2B and L929 cells), which might be attributed to the increasing reactive oxygen species in cancer cells treated by diselenide-containing NPs. These results highlight the potential of developing diselenide-containing organic molecules as molecularly tunable and sensitive nanoplatform for cancer treatment.