Doxorubicin-Loaded Bi-PEG Nanoparticles as Novel Chemo-Photothermal Nanoagents for Efficiently Killing Cancer Cells

The chemo-photothermal therapy has been proved to be one of efficient strategies for destroying cancer cells, and the prerequisite is to develop photothermal nanoagents with drug-loading capacity. However, most of the current chemo-photothermal nanoagents have multiple structures which require complex synthetic process, undoubtedly hindering their bioapplication. Herein, we prepared PEGylated Bi nanoparticles and loaded with the model drug doxorubicin (DOX), forming DOX@Bi-PEG nanoparticles. Bi-PEG nanoparticles were firstly synthesized through a rapid reduction method and then coated with PEGylated phospholipids, exhibiting strong NIR absorption, high photothermal conversion efficiency of 49.4%, DOX-loading efficiency of 22.8% as well as low cytotoxicity. After incubation with 4T1 cells, DOX@Bi-PEG nanoparticles can be uptaken by cells and then release DOX within cells for chemotherapy. Furthermore, when exposed to 1064 nm laser, these nanoparticles can produce enough heat for photothermal ablating cancer cells. Therefore, the present DOX@Bi-PEG nanoparticles can be served as novel and efficient nanoagents for chemophotothermal therapy of cancer cells.