Dendrimer‐Stabilized Gold Nanostars as a Multifunctional Theranostic Nanoplatform for CT Imaging, Photothermal Therapy, and Gene Silencing of Tumors

Abstract

Development of versatile nanomaterials combining diagnostic and therapeutic functionalities within one single nanoplatform is extremely important for tumor theranostics. In this work, the authors report the synthesis of a gold nanostar (Au NS)-based theranostic platform stabilized with cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic (Arg-Gly-Asp, RGD) peptide-modified amine-terminated generation 3 poly(amidoamine) dendrimers. The formed RGD-modified dendrimer-stabilized Au NSs (RGD-Au DSNSs) are used as a gene delivery vector to complex small interfering RNA (siRNA) for computed tomography (CT) imaging, thermal imaging, photothermal therapy (PTT), and gene therapy of tumors. The results show that the RGD-Au DSNSs are able to compact vascular endothelial growth factor siRNA and specifically deliver siRNA to cancer cells overexpressing α β integrin. Under near-infrared laser irradiation, the viability of cancer cells is only 20.2% after incubation with the RGD-Au DSNS/siRNA polyplexes, which is much lower than that of cells after single PTT or gene therapy treatment. Furthermore, in vivo results show that the RGD-Au DSNS/siRNA polyplexes enable tumor CT imaging, thermal imaging, PTT, and gene therapy after intratumoral injection. These results indicate that the developed multifunctional nanoconstruct is a promising platform for tumor imaging and combinational PTT and gene therapy.

Functionalized MoS2-nanosheets for targeted drug delivery and chemo-photothermal therapy

“…PTT can be combined with chemotherapy to deliver improved therapeutic performance in the treatment of cancer, has and such combined therapies have attracted increasing attention in recent years [24][25][26][27][28][29]. They can most potently be delivered through responsive drug delivery systems (DDSs) [30][31][32][33][34][35][36], which respond to stimuli such as light, magnetic fields, or ultrasonication [37][38][39], or to changes in redox potential, pH and the presence of absence of particular molecules [40][41][42][43].…”

Recent therapeutic applications of the theranostic principle with dendrimers in oncology

“…The same team evaluated the in vivo biodistribution of the G2-PAMAM dendrimer (16 surface amine groups) conjugated with 1B4M and humanized anti-Tac IgG (HuTac) to generate the G2-PAMAM-IB4M-HuTac dendrimer, which was then radiolabeled with 111 In and 88 In-G2-PAMAM-IB4M-HuTac and 88 Y-G2-PAMAM-IB4M-HuTac accumulated in the liver, kidney, spleen, and bone in nude mice following intravenous administration. Radiolabeled G2-PAMAM-1B4M-HuTac dendritic nanoprobes showed faster blood clearance and greater liver and spleen accumulation compared with native HuTac.…”

Delivering siRNA with Dendrimers: In Vivo Applications

“…For cancer applications, siRNA delivery with dendrimers has been extensively studied in animal cancer models (Table 1). Some studies apply the dendriplexes directly to tumors [114,115,129,130], others have performed systemic ad-ministration of dendriplexes functionalized with targeting moieties directed to cancer cells [101,121], and also both approaches -intratumoral administration with cancer targeting moieties -have also been reported by Wei et al [161]. In this last study, by using gold nanostar-based platform modified with PAMAM dendrimers, the authors proposed an Version: Postprint (identical content as published paper) This is a self-archived document from i3S -Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde in the University of Porto Open Repository For Open Access to more of our publications, please visit http://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/ A01/00 interesting diagnosis application for tumor computed tomography imaging.…”