Phototherapy, including
photothermal therapy (PTT) and
photodynamic therapy (
PDT) has attracted growing attention as a noninvasive option for
cancer treatment. At present, researchers have developed various "all-in-one" nanoplatforms for
cancer imaging and PTT/
PDT combinational
therapy. However, the complex structure, tedious preparation procedures, overuse of extra carriers and severe side effects hinder their biomedical applications. In this work, we reported a nanoplatform (designated as ICG-MB) self-assembly from two different FDA-approved
dyes of
indocyanine green (ICG) and
methylene blue (MB) without any additional
excipients for
cancer fluorescence imaging and combinational PTT/
PDT. ICG-MB was found to exhibit good dispersion in the aqueous phase and improve the photostability and cellular uptake of free ICG and MB, thus exhibiting enhanced photothermal conversion and
singlet oxygen (1O2) generation abilities to robustly ablate
cancer cells under 808 nm and 670 nm
laser irradiation. After
intravenous injection, ICG-MB effectively accumulated at
tumor sites with a near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence signal, which helped to delineate the targeted area for NIR
laser-triggered
phototoxicity. As a consequence, ICG-MB displayed a combinational PTT/
PDT effect to potently inhibit
tumor growth without causing any system toxicities in vivo. In conclusion, this minimalist, effective and biocompatible nanotheranostic would provide a promising candidate for
cancer phototherapy based on current available
dyes in clinic.