Hybrid membrane camouflaged Prussian blue nanoparticles with cinobufagin loading for chemo/photothermal therapy of colorectal cancer

The natural compound of cinobufagin (CS-1) has showed potential application for colorectal cancer therapy. However, the limitation of hydrophobicity and cardiotoxicity appealed for the improvement of compound formulation. Meanwhile, sole chemotherapy for colorectal cancer (CRC) is facing the challenges of finite accumulation of drugs in tumor sites and nonspecific toxicity. In order to overcome these limitations, cinobufagin loaded in Prussian Blue nanoparticles (PC NPs) were prepared for CRC therapy by combining with photothermal therapy (PTT). The hybrid cell membranes coating was adopted to endow immune escape and tumor homing capacity of PC@M NPs. Both in vitro and in vivo assay demonstrated that the chemo/photothermal therapy not only suppressed CRC growth, but also inhibited the metastasis of primary by downregulating the expression of Vimentin, matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and hypoxia-inducible factor1-alpha (HIF-1α). Moreover, this strategy modulated the intestinal microbiota of CRC-bearing mice to a normal level in some extent. Taken together, this proposed nanoplatform presents a potential strategy for CRC therapy.