MOF-derived CuS@Cu-MOF nanocomposites for synergistic photothermal-chemodynamic-chemo therapy

Multifunctional nanoagents with simultaneous bioimaging and photothermal/chemodynamic/drug-delivering functions have great advantages in synergistic cancer theranostic, but the design and preparation of such nanoagents remain challenging. Herein, with porous Cu-based metal–organic framework (Cu-MOF) as the precursor, we report a convenient partial in-situ vulcanization strategy to construct [email protected] nanocomposites as multifunction nanoagents for maximizing anti-cancer efficacy. [email protected] nanocomposites are composed of fusiform-like Cu-MOF with lengths of ∼ 200 nm and widths of ∼ 40 nm, where CuS nanodots with sizes of ∼ 4 nm are uniformly distributed on the surface or in the pore structure of the Cu-MOF. [email protected] nanocomposites exhibit the increased NIR photoabsorption and high thermal conversion efficiency (39.6%) for photothermal therapy, resulting from the plasmon effect of CuS. In addition, [email protected]/PEG exhibit Fenton-like reaction feature (H2O2→•OH) for chemodynamic therapy owing to Cu element, and the reaction rate can be further improved by 1.53 times by photothermal effect. Furthermore, due to the porous structure of MOF, the drug (DOX as the model) can be well encapsulated into [email protected]/PEG with the loading ability (25.5%), and the DOX release is more rapid in an acidic environment, facilitating the chemotherapy. When DOX/[email protected]/PEG dispersion is injected into tumor-bearing mice, the tumors can be monitored by photoacoustic (PA) and thermal imaging. Furthermore, tumor growth can be greatly inhibited by the synergistic photothermal-chemodynamic-chemo therapy effects. Simultaneously, no noticeable side effects can be found for mice. Therefore, the present study not only reports DOX/[email protected]/PEG as a novel nanoagent for imaging-guided multi-model therapy of tumors, but also provides some insights on the design of other MOF-derived multifunctional nanoagents.