Design and Characterization of Programmable Nanomaterials for Photothermal Cancer Theranostics

Cancer is still a major cause of death worldwide, and drawbacks of traditional treatments such as systemic toxicity, lack of tumor specificity and multidrug resistance have led to development of new therapeutic modalities.On account of the drawbacks mentioned above, photothermal therapy (PTT), a kind of therapy which transfers the laser energy from light into heat for tumor ablation, provides an attractive alternative form.Nevertheless, the efficacy of the PTT is largely contingent on the delivery system which can specifically accumulate into the tumor area, expose to the stimulations, and release the active drugs at the right site.This motivates the emergence of programmable nanomaterials to achieve integration of diagnostic imaging, targeted drug delivery, and photothermal effects in an individual theranostic system.Herein, we report for the first time a comprehensive study of design, synthesis and characterization of these programmable nanomaterials, especially the ones prepared with programmable surface ligand presentation, pH/thermal-sensitive cores, and narrow infrared (NIR) absorption.The physicochemical properties, photothermal conversion efficiency, in vitro cytotoxicity, and tumor-targeting specificity of the nanomaterials are investigated.Systematic characterization is performed by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), UV-NIR spectroscopy, and in vitro cell assays.Moreover, surface modification with targeting ligands such as folic acid or peptides also promotes specific cancer cell uptake compared to normal tissues.The results emphasize the capability of the programmable nanoplatform for not only site-specific tumour ablation, but also real-time monitoring by the incorporated imaging modalities.The synergistic combination of photothermal effectiveness and molecular programming makes these nanoagents a groundbreaking strategy in the field of tailored cancer theranostics.