Tumor Microenvironment-triggered Nanosystems as dual-relief Tumor Hypoxia Immunomodulators for enhanced Phototherapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising strategy in cancer treatment that utilizes photosensitizers (PSs) to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and eliminate cancer cells under specific wavelength light irradiation. However, special tumor environments, such as those with overexpression of glutathione (GSH), which will consume PDT-mediated ROS, as well as hypoxia in the tumor microenvironment (TME) could lead to ineffective treatment. Moreover, PDT is highly light-dependent and therefore can be hindered in deep tumor cells where light cannot easily penetrate. To solve these problems, we designed oxygen-dual-generating nanosystems MnO2@Chitosan-CyI (MCC) for enhanced phototherapy. Methods: The TME-sensitive nanosystems MCC were easily prepared through the self-assembly of iodinated indocyanine green (ICG) derivative CyI and chitosan, after which the MnO2 nanoparticles were formed as a shell by electrostatic interaction and Mn-N coordinate bonding. Results: When subjected to NIR irradiation, MCC offered enhanced ROS production and heat generation. Furthermore, once endocytosed, MnO2 could not only decrease the level of GSH but also serve as a highly efficient in situ oxygen generator. Meanwhile, heat generation-induced temperature increase accelerated in vivo blood flow, which effectively relieved the environmental tumor hypoxia. Furthermore, enhanced PDT triggered an acute immune response, leading to NIR-guided, synergistic PDT/photothermal/immunotherapy capable of eliminating tumors and reducing tumor metastasis. Conclusion: The proposed novel nanosystems represent an important advance in altering TME for improved clinical PDT efficacy, as well as their potential as effective theranostic agents in cancer treatment.

Iodinated Cyanine Dyes for Fast Near-Infrared-Guided Deep Tissue Synergistic Phototherapy.

Phototheranostics, which combines deep tissue imaging and phototherapy [photodynamic therapy (PDT) and/or photothermal therapy (PTT)] via light irradiation, is a promising strategy to treat tumors. Near-infrared (NIR) cyanine dyes are researched as potential phototheranostics reagents for their excellent photophysical properties. However, the low singlet oxygen generation efficiency of cyanine dyes often leads to inadequate therapeutic efficacy for tumors. Herein, we modified an indocyanine green derivative Cy7 with heavy atom iodine to form a novel NIR dye CyI to improve the reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and heat generation while, at the same time, maintain their fluorescence characteristics for in vivo noninvasive imaging. More importantly, in vitro and in vivo therapeutic results illustrated that CyI could quickly and simultaneously generate enhanced ROS and heat to induce more cancer cell apoptosis and higher inhibition rates in deep HepG2 tumors than other noniodinated NIR dyes upon NIR irradiation. Besides, low toxicity of the resulted iodinated NIR dyes was confirmed by in vivo biodistribution and acute toxicity. Results indicate that this low toxic NIR dye could be an ideal phototheranostics agent for deep tumor treatments. Our study presents a novel approach to achieve the fast-synergistic PDT/PTT treatment in deep tissues.