ICG@ZIF-8: One-step encapsulation of indocyanine green in ZIF-8 and use as a therapeutic nanoplatform

How to fabricate zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) based therapeutic nanoplatform will be of significance in biomedicine considering its good biocompatibility. Herein, we report a one-step encapsulation of indocyanine green (ICG) in ZIF-8 nanoparticles (NPs). The as-prepared [email protected] NPs possess an absorption band in the near infrared region and have the good photothermal conversion efficiency. The in vivo and in vitro studies show that, after loading chemotherapy agent hydrophobic doxorubicin (DOX), [email protected] NPs exhibit the chem-and photothermal synergistic therapy for tumor. In addition, it is found that the embedded ICG molecules in [email protected] NPs can be disassociated and released into the solution upon the 808 nm laser irradiation, demonstrating that as-prepared [email protected] NPs can also be used as the optical imaging probe to trace the degradability behavior of resulting NPs in future