High treatment accuracy is the key to efficient cancer
treatment.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) are two
kinds of popular, precise treatment methods. The combination of photodynamic
and photothermal therapy (PDT/PTT) can greatly enhance the precise
therapeutic efficacy. In this work, protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) was selected
as the PDT agent (photosensitizer), and new indocyanine green (IR-820)
was selected as the PTT agent. Further, the two kinds of theranostic
agents were encapsulated by biological-membrane-compatible liposomes
to form PpIX-IR-820@Lipo nanoparticles (NPs), a new kind of PDT/PTT
agent. The PpIX-IR-820@Lipo NPs exhibited good water solubility, a
spherical shape, and high fluorescence peak emission in the near-infrared
spectral region (700–900 nm, NIR). The cellular toxicity of
PpIX-IR-820@Lipo NPs for human cervical cancer cells (HeLa) and human
cervical epithelial cells (H8) was detected by the CCK-8 method, and
low cytotoxicity was observed for the PpIX-IR-820@Lipo NPs. Then,
the excellent cellular uptake of PpIX-IR-820@Lipo NPs was confirmed
by laser scanning confocal microscopy. Moreover, the PDT/PTT property
of PpIX-IR-820@Lipo NPs was illustrated via 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescin
diacetate (DCFH-DA) and annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate (annexin
V-FITC), as indicator probes. The PDT/PTT synergistic efficiency of
PpIX-IR-820@Lipo NPs on HeLa cells was verified, exhibiting a high
efficiency of 70.5%. Thus, the novel theranostic PpIX-IR-820@Lipo
NPs can be used as a promising PDT/PTT synergistic theranostic nanoplatform
in future cervical cancer treatment.