Specific disruption of glutathione-defense system with activatable single molecule-assembled nanoprodrug for boosted photodynamic/chemotherapy eradication of drug-resistant tumors

Developing single molecule-assembled nanoprodrugs that can reverse the glutathione (GSH)-mediated drug resistance of tumors provides promising potentials for precision and effective cancer theranostics. Herein, we developed a novel single molecule-assembled nanoprodrug for effective photodynamic/chemotherapeutic eradication of drug-resistant tumors via the multistage GSH-depletion. The nanoprodrug MSSP-NP could be fancily fabricated by self-assembly of an amphiphilic activatable molecular MSSP, which is synthesized by covalently conjugating the photosensitizer methylene blue (MB) with a GSH-sensitive cisplatin prodrug via a tumor targeting thiolated polypeptide. Upon the nanoprodrug MSSP-NP systematic administrated, its photoactivities and pharmacological effects can be thoroughly switched on by intracellular GSH to produce the photosensitizer MB and chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin, along with the multi-step consumption of GSH, which could remarkably boost oxidative stress and reverse the drug resistance. As a result, the nanoprodrug could effectively disrupt the tumor GSH-defense system to afford high-efficiency photodynamic/chemotherapeutic inhibition of drug resistance tumors (96.4%) with minimum side effects.