A novel gold-based stimuli-responsive theranostic nanomedicine for chemo-photothermal therapy of solid tumors.

Abstract The chemo-photothermal therapy performance of a novel theranostic nanoparticles that fabricated through the conjugation of HS–poly(e-caprolactone)-block-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-block-poly(acrylic acid) (HS-PCL-b-PNIPAAm-b-PAA) and gold nanoparticles (GNPs) was extensively investigated. The GNPs@polymer conjugate theranostic NPs was loaded with doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) as an anticancer drug through electrostatic interactions to afford GNPs@polymer-DOX theranostic nanomedicine. Temperature and pH-triggered in vitro drug release behavior of the developed theranostic nanomedicine were also examined. The biocompatibility of the synthesized GNPs@polymer theranostic NPs was confirmed through the assessing survival rate of breast cancer cell line (MCF7) using MTT assay. In vitro cytotoxic effects of the GNPs@polymer-DOX theranostic nanomedicine was also evaluated against MCF7 cells in both with or without laser irradiation (532 nm, 145 mJ per pulse, 5 min) conditions, and the results obtained were compared with free DOX as the reference. As the results, the developed GNPs@polymer-DOX can be considered as theranostic nanomedicine for chemo-photothermal therapy of solid tumors.