Nanotechnology is a branch of science dealing with the developing processes of a new type of nanomaterials by several methods. In the biomedical field, nanotechnology is widely used in the...

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a breast cancer subtype. At present, TNBC patients do not have approved targeted therapy. Therefore, patients primarily depend on forceful systemic chemotherapy that has unavoidable harmful side effects, resulting in inadequate therapeutic outcomes and leading to a high mortality rate. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop targeted therapies for the TNBC populace. Developing a new nanotherapeutic approach of combinational therapy could be an effective alternative strategy. Therefore, we designed a combination of hyaluronan (HA)–polyaniline (PANi)–imiquimod (R837), denoted as HA-PANi/R837, nanoparticles (NPs) that exhibited a high extinction coefficient of 8.23 × 108 M–1 cm–1 and adequate photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) (η = 41.6%), making them an efficient photothermal agent (PTA) that is highly beneficial for selective CD44-mediated photothermal ablation of TNBC tumors. Furthermore, co-encapsulation of R837 (toll-like receptor 7 agonist) immunoadjuvant molecules triggers an immune response against the tumor. The formed CD44-targeted HA-PANi/R837 NPs’ selectivity incinerates the tumor under near-infrared (NIR)-triggered photothermal ablation, generating tumor-associated antigens and triggering R837 combination with anti-CTLA-4 for immunogenic cell death (ICD) activation to kill the remaining tumor cells in mice and protect against tumor relapse and metastasis. Our results demonstrated that novel HA-PANi/R837 NP-induced photothermal ICD achieved in CD44-targeted TNBC is a promising application.

Nanomedicine with immunotherapy will offer the opportunities to target cancer in an effective manner; however, remains challenging. We herein report a photothermal material loaded with immune-adjuvant combined immune checkpoint blockade...

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Integrated tumor-seeking nanomedicine (TSN) is designed to achieve a high therapeutic anticancer effect that is highly desirable for effective cancer treatment to overcome the detrimental effects of conventional therapies. However, direct administration of drugs cannot achieve a high level of specificity, which remains a formidable challenge. To address the confines, incorporation of multifunctionalities to maximize the specificity of TSN must be performed; TSN picks up multiple cargoes that are initially arrested at the core location and delivers each type simultaneously to a specified destination. Here, we introduce a valuable approach of Her2/neu-rich tumor cell surface-receptor-targeting TSN, which was highly pH-responsive and significantly realized the selective triple-therapeutic effects of blocking Her2/neu functions, chemotherapy, and phototherapy (photodynamic therapy (PDT)/ photothermal therapy (PTT)). Therefore, the unprecedented selectivity of TSN provides a triple-therapeutic effect to spread the repertoire of "TSN" targets for future clinically relevant translation in improving breast cancer therapy.