Remodeling endogenous H2S microenvironment in colon cancer to enhance chemodynamic therapy

Chemodynamic therapy (CDT) is a newly emerged, minimally invasive treatment with high selectivity, few side effects, and good prospects for clinical application. However, CDT does not effectively inhibit the growth of colon cancer, which has a strongly reducing tumor microenvironment owing to a high endogenous expression of H2S. To overcome this limitation, a new strategy is proposed to enhance the CDT of colon cancer by remodeling the microenvironment through depletion of endogenous H2S by CuFe2O4 nanoparticles. After H2S depletion, the valence of Cu (II) and Fe (III) in CuFe2O4 particles is reduced to Cu (I) and Fe (II) and photothermal properties of the nanoparticles are activated, both these effects enhance CDT. Further, in vitro and in vivo results demonstrate that endogenous H2S depletion by CuFe2O4 particles induced three effects that synergistically enhanced the performance of CDT. In this study, the development of a new strategy to enhance the CDT of colon cancer is reported.