Recently, nanomaterials with multiple functions, such as
drug carrier, MRI and optical imaging,
photothermal therapy etc, have become more and more popular in the domain of
cancer research. In this study, a C60-IONP nanocomposite is synthesized via decorating iron oxide nanoparticles (IONP) onto
fullerene (C60) and then functionalized by
polyethylene glycol (
PEG2000), giving C60-IONP-PEG with excellent stability in physiological solutions, finally
folic acid (FA), a widely used
tumor targeting molecule, was linked to C60-IONP-PEG in order to obtain an active
tumor targeting effect to MCF-7 cells and malignant
tumor in mice models. Herein, a hybrid nanoplatform with multi-functional characteristics for
cancer diagnosis,
photodynamic therapy (
PDT), radiofrequency (RF) thermal
therapy (RTT) and magnetic targeting applications was developed and explored its biofunctions in vitro and in vivo. C60-IONP-PEG-FA showed neglectable toxicity, not only served as a powerful
tumor diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
contrast agent, but also as a strong
photosensitizer and powerful agent for photothermal ablation of
tumor, furthermore a remarkable synergistic enhancement of
PDT combination with RTT was also observed during the treatment both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, the multi-functional nanoplatform also could selectively kill
cancer cells in highly localized regions via the excellent active
tumor targeting and magnetic targeted abilities. This work showed the multi-functional C60-IONP-PEG-FA nanoplatform had a great potential for
cancer theranostic applications.