Improved Anticancer Photothermal Therapy Using the Bystander Effect Enhanced by Antiarrhythmic Peptide Conjugated Dopamine‐Modified Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposite

Abstract

Despite tremendous efforts toward developing novel near-infrared (NIR)-absorbing nanomaterials, improvement in therapeutic efficiency remains a formidable challenge in photothermal cancer therapy. This study aims to synthesize a specific peptide conjugated polydopamine-modified reduced graphene oxide (pDA/rGO) nanocomposite that promotes the bystander effect to facilitate cancer treatment using NIR-activated photothermal therapy. To prepare a nanoplatform capable of promoting the bystander effect in cancer cells, we immobilized antiarrhythmic peptide 10 (AAP10) on the surface of dopamine-modified rGO (AAP10-pDA/rGO). Our AAP10-pDA/rGO could promote the bystander effect by increasing the expression of connexin 43 protein in MCF-7 breast-cancer cells. Because of its tremendous ability to absorb NIR absorption, AAP10-pDA/rGO offers a high photothermal effect under NIR irradiation. This leads to a massive death of MCF-7 cells via the bystander effect. Using tumor-bearing mice as the model, it is found that NIR radiation effectively ablates breast tumor in the presence of AAP10-pDA/rGO and inhibits tumor growth by ≈100%. Therefore, this research integrates the bystander and photothermal effects into a single nanoplatform in order to facilitate an efficient photothermal therapy. Furthermore, our AAP10-pDA/rGO, which exhibits both hyperthermia and the bystander effect, can prevent breast-cancer recurrence and, therefore, has great potential for future clinical and research applications.

Robust and Tumor-Environment-Activated DNA Cross-Linker Driving Nanoparticle Accumulation for Enhanced Therapeutics

“…It has been reported that hyperthermia to ∼57°C can result in irreversible tumor cell damage and the best PTT effect (Figure 3d). 31,32 This declaration was proven by the histopathological tissue analysis following hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of tumor sections from mice after the treatments. As shown in Figure 3e, compared with CuS@mSiO 2 -DOX, CuS@mSiO 2 -DOX/i-motif/TK-mPEG resulted in more necrotic areas in tumor tissues, indicating more severe tumor damage by both enhanced PTT and chemotherapy.…”

Controlled phage therapy by photothermal ablation of specific bacterial species using gold nanorods targeted by chimeric phages

“…To confer specificity to nanostructures, one may conjugate antibodies that target specific bacterial strains (26), following upon extensive work targeting nanoparticles for cancer cell treatment (27)(28)(29)(30). However, phage-based strategies possess several advantages compared to antibody-based strategies.…”

Autophagic flux induced by graphene oxide has a neuroprotective effect against human prion protein fragments

“…20,21 Since the seminal report on use of graphene oxide (GO), a derivative of graphene, this compound has seen increasing application in biomedical areas, including cell proliferation and differentiation, drug delivery, immune response, and anticancer therapy. 15,18,20,[22][23][24] Significantly, GO has abundant oxygen functional groups, including hydroxyl, epoxy, carbonyl, and carboxyl groups. 25 The effect of GO can be modulated by modification of its oxygen moieties as well as altering chemical functionality on graphene layers.…”