Issue 13, 2017

Synthesis of a core/satellite-like multifunctional nanocarrier for pH- and NIR-triggered intracellular chemothermal therapy and tumor imaging

Abstract

Here, we have reported a core/satellite-like multifunctional nanocarrier for pH- and NIR-triggered synergistic chemothermal therapy and tumor imaging. In this system, upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), which have an average diameter of 23 nm, were first synthesized by a classic high-temperature solvent method and subsequently used as the imaging cores to direct the coating of mesoporous silica shells. The obtained mesoporous silica coated core–shell nanoparticles (UCNP@mSiO2) have a uniform pore size (4.2 nm) and excellent DOX loading ability (85.3 μmol g−1 SiO2), which makes UCNP@mSiO2 a good carrier. In order to finally obtain this core/satellite-like system (DOX@UCNP@mSiO2–AuNRs), gold nanorods (AuNRs) with a positive charge of 15 mV were subsequently capped on the negatively charged DOX loaded UCNP@mSiO2 (−30 mV) via electrostatic interactions. Under low-pH conditions (e.g. pH 4.9), the charge of mesoporous silica changed to −10.8 mV, leading to the separation of AuNRs and the release of entrapped DOX. Moreover, the present AuNRs can effectively convert NIR light (780 nm) into heat, and the increased temperature is as high as 20 °C under the laser power density of 2.0 W cm−2. This study showed that this system has excellent imaging ability and synergistic chemothermal therapy effect. A versatile synergistic therapy system such as DOX@UCNP@mSiO2–AuNRs is expected to have wide biomedical applications and may be particularly useful for synergistic tumor therapy.

Graphical abstract: Synthesis of a core/satellite-like multifunctional nanocarrier for pH- and NIR-triggered intracellular chemothermal therapy and tumor imaging

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Dec 2016
Accepted
16 Jan 2017
First published
23 Jan 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 7742-7752

Synthesis of a core/satellite-like multifunctional nanocarrier for pH- and NIR-triggered intracellular chemothermal therapy and tumor imaging

X. Yang, J. Xiong, P. Qiu, M. Chen, D. He, X. He, K. Wang and J. Tang, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 7742 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA27802G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements