A combination of chemo- and photo-thermal
therapy (PTT) has provided a promising efficient approach for
cancer therapy. To achieve the superior synergistic chemotherapeutic effect with PTT, the development of a simple
theranostic nanoplatform that can provide both
cancer imaging and a spatial-temporal synchronism of both therapeutic approaches are highly desired. Our previous study has demonstrated that near-infrared (NIR) light-triggered biodegradable
chitosan-based amphiphilic block copolymer
micelles (SNSC) containing light-sensitive
2-nitrobenzyl alcohol and NIR
dye cypate on the hydrophobic block could be used for fast light-triggered drug release. In this study, we conjugated the SNSC
micelles with
tumor targeting
ligand c(RGDyK) and also encapsulated
antitumor drug Paclitaxel (PTX). The results show that c(RGDyK)-modified
micelles could enhance the targeting and residence time in
tumor site, as well as be capable performing high temperature response for PTT on
cancer cells and two-photon photolysis for fast release of anticancer drugs under NIR irradiation. In vitro release profiles show a significant controlled release effort that the release concentration of PTX from
micelles was significantly increased with the exposure of NIR light. In vitro and in vivo antitumor studies demonstrate that, compared with chemo or PTT treatment alone, the combined treatment with the local exposure of NIR light exhibited significantly enhanced anti-
tumor efficiency. These findings indicate that this system exhibited great potential in
tumor-targeting imaging and synchronous chemo- and photo-thermal
therapy.