With the rapid development of nanomedicine, low side effects and high-efficiency green antitumor approaches have attracted great attention. Herein, we report a strategy for the in situ synthesis of
graphene oxide@zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (GOx@ZIF-8) composite nanoparticles with high catalytic efficiency, under mild conditions by adding GOx molecules to the precursor of ZIF-8, and use them as a carrier to achieve efficient loading of l-Arg. In addition.
folic-acid-conjugated
bovine serum albumin (FA-BSA) has been used to engineer the surface of GOx@ZIF-8-l-Arg composite nanoparticles to enhance their specific recognition of
tumor cells. With the high
glucose level and low pH in the
tumor intracellular environment, FA-BSA/GOx@ZIF-8-l-Arg rapidly consumed the intracellular
glucose and produced H2O2, which profusely deteriorated the intracellular environment. Subsequently, a large amount of l-Arg was continuously released from the nanoparticles, reacting with H2O2 to continuously produce a high concentration of
nitric oxide (NO), which further damaged the
tumor cells. The FA-BSA/GOx@ZIF-8-l-Arg composite nanoparticles were cleverly designed to kill
cancer cells efficiently through a
starvation-NO synergistic process. This emerging green antitumor method has a promising application prospect in targeted
therapy for the efficient clearance of
cancers.