<p>ICG-Loaded PEGylated BSA-Silver Nanoparticles for Effective Photothermal Cancer Therapy</p>

Abstract

Purpose Indocyanine green (ICG), a near infrared (NIR) dye clinically approved in medical diagnostics, possesses great heat conversion efficiency, which renders itself as an effective photosensitizer for photothermal therapy (PTT) of cancer. However, there remain bottleneck challenges for use in PTT, which are the poor photo and plasma stability of ICG. To address these problems, in this research, ICG-loaded silver nanoparticles were prepared and evaluated for the applicability as an effective agent for photothermal cancer therapy. Methods and Results PEGylated bovine serum albumin (BSA)-coated silver core/shell nanoparticles were synthesized with a high loading of ICG (“PEG-BSA-AgNP/ICG”). Physical characterization was carried out using size analyzer, transmission electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry to identify successful preparation and size stability. ICG-loading content and the photothermal conversion efficiency of the particles were confirmed with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and laser instruments. In vitro studies showed that the PEG-BSA-AgNP/ICG could provide great photostability for ICG, and their applicability for PTT was verified from the cellular study results. Furthermore, when the PEG-BSA-AgNP/ICG were tested in vivo, study results exhibited that ICG could stably remain in the blood circulation for a markedly long period (plasma half-life: 112 min), and about 1.7% ID/g tissue could be accumulated in the tumor tissue at 4 h post-injection. Such nanoparticle accumulation in the tumor enabled tumor surface temperature to be risen to 50°C (required for photo-ablation) by laser irradiation and led to successful inhibition of tumor growth in the B16F10 s.c. syngeneic nude mice model, with minimal systemic toxicity. Conclusion Our findings demonstrated that PEG-BSA-AgNPs could serve as effective carriers for delivering ICG to the tumor tissue with great stability and safety.

BSA-Silver Nanoparticles: A Potential Multimodal Therapeutics for Conventional and Photothermal Treatment of Skin Cancer

“…Most importantly, albumin can extend the plasma circulation time of the coated NPs by itself, while other coating materials usually require further PEGylation to ensure sufficient plasma residence. Previously, we reported that BSA-coated Silver NPs could reside in the bloodstream for about an hour without any other modification [ 36 ]. In addition, due to albumin’s propensity to bind with different types of drug molecules and materials (such as fatty acids), the BSA-coated NPs can serve as effective drug carriers [ 37 ].…”

“…This is so because, by focally irradiating an external laser to the tumor site, spatially selective and minimally invasive treatment could be accomplished. The therapeutic effects of PTT heavily rely on the light-to-heat conversion efficiency of the photothermal agents, as well as on the accessibility of the tumor tissue to the laser [ 36 ]. Therefore, to date, various NPs composed of different materials, including silver NPs, have been explored in the PTT research [ 52 ].…”

Construction of multifunctional porcine acellular dermal matrix hydrogel blended with vancomycin for hemorrhage control, antibacterial action, and tissue repair in infected trauma wounds

“…However, Ag NPs are cytotoxic [ [16] , [17] , [18] ] i.e. they cause cell membrane damage [ 19 ], DNA damage [ 20 ], oxidative stress [ 21 ], and the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) [ 22 ]. Staphylococcus aureus ( S. aureus ) is the most common type of bacterium that causes skin infection [ 23 , 24 ].…”

Recent Advance of Nanomaterial-Mediated Tumor Therapies in the Past Five Years

“…Compared with traditional tumor therapy, both photothermal and photodynamic therapy can be applied accurately and effectively with less side effects and greatly reduce the patient's pain in a noninvasive way (Figure 2) (Li et al, 2020). Photothermal agents are materials with good light-to-heat conversion capabilities, mainly including noble metals (gold (Wang et al, 2013), silver (Park et al, 2020), platinum (Ma et al, 2020), etc. ), two-dimensional materials (graphene (Chen et al, 2016), black phosphorus (BP) (Geng et al, 2019), transition metal-based materials (Xie et al, 2019), etc.…”