Selective drug release
is highly desirable for photothermal/chemo combination therapy when
two or even more theranostic agents are encapsulated together within
the same nanocarrier. A conventional nanocarrier can hardly achieve
this goal. Herein, doxorubicin and indocyanine green (DOX/ICG)-loaded
nanocolloidosomes (NCs), with selective drug release, were fabricated
as a novel multifunctional theranostic nanoplatform for photothermal/chemo
combination therapy. Templating from galactose-functionalized hydroxyethyl
starch-polycaprolactone (Gal-HES-PCL) nanoparticles-stabilized Pickering
emulsions, the resultant DOX/ICG@Gal-HES-PCL NCs had a diameter of
around 140 nm and showed an outstanding tumor-targeting ability, preferable
tumor penetration capability, and promotion of photothermal effect.
Moreover, these NCs can be used for NIR fluorescence imaging and thus
render real-time imaging of solid tumors with high contrast. Collectively,
such NCs achieved the best in vivo antitumor efficacy combined with
laser irradiation compared with DOX/ICG@HES-PCL NCs and DOX/ICG mixture.
These NCs are valuable for active tumor-targeted imaging-guided combination
therapy against liver cancer and potentially other diseases
