Tailoring morphologies of mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticles to deliver high-loading radioiodine for anaplastic thyroid carcinoma imaging and therapy

Abstract

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC), as one of the most aggressive human malignancies, cannot be cured by ¹³¹iodine (¹³¹I) internal radiotherapy (RT) because the tumor cells cannot effectively take up ¹³¹I and are resistant to radiotherapy. In this study, a facile and simple method was proposed to synthesize mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticles (MPDA) and tailor their morphologies by component-adjusting Pluronic micelle-guided polymerization. Then, MPDA were used not only as nanocarriers to radiolabel ¹³¹I, but also as photothermal conversion agents for photothermal therapy (PTT) to promote RT. The iodine-labeling capacity and photothermal conversion efficiency of MPDA can be enhanced by optimizing their morphologies. It was found that MPDA NPs with a cerebroid pore channel structure (CPDA) showed the highest iodine-carrying capacity and a higher photothermal conversion efficiency as a result of their maximum specific surface area and unique morphology. In subsequent experiments in vitro and in vivo, our ATC animal models showed impressive therapeutic responses to CPDA-¹³¹I NPs because of the synergistic effect of PTT and RT. Additionally, CPDA-¹²⁵I NPs can be utilized to obtain high-quality SPETC/CT images of tumors, which can guide clinical therapy for ATC. Considering their great biosafety, these radioiodine-labeled CPDA NPs may serve as a promising tool in combined therapy and diagnosis in ATC.