Although
photothermal therapy is widely employed for tumor treatment
because of its high tumor cell selectivity and low apoptosis resistance,
heat-shock proteins (HSPs) impart resistance to heat-induced apoptosis
in tumor cells, thus diminishing the therapeutic effectiveness. To
this end, tin selenide (SnSe) was grown in situ on
reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets to construct a photothermal–thermoelectric
SnSe/rGO nanosystem. The rGO component converted near-infrared light
energy into localized thermal energy, resulting in the thermal ablation
of tumor cells. Meanwhile, SnSe converted temperature fluctuations
into pyroelectric charges, which interacted with surrounding O2 molecules to generate reactive oxygen species that oxidized
the amino acids on the HSPs, which changed the protein conformation
and functionally damaged the tumor cells. In addition, rGO functioned
as an efficient electron acceptor to increase electron mobility, thus
enhancing the thermoelectric conversion efficiency of SnSe. Then,
the SnSe/rGO nanosystem was incorporated into a poly-l-lactic
acid bone scaffold to prevent tumor recurrence. Results showed that
the composite scaffold not only exhibited good photothermal and thermoelectric
effects. In vitro cell tests demonstrated that the
scaffold generated 1O2 based on temperature
fluctuations and the antitumor rate reached 86.6% against osteosarcoma
MG-63 cells.