Size and Shape Effects of Near‐Infrared Light‐Activatable Cu₂(OH)PO₄ Nanostructures on Phototherapeutic Destruction of Drug‐Resistant Hypoxia Tumors

Abstract

Development of simple, robust, and noninvasive therapeutic approaches to treat cancers and improve survival rates is a grand challenge in clinical biomedicine. In particular, the sizes and shape of the nanomaterials play a vital role in dictating their biodistribution and clearance pathways. It remains elusive how the size and shape of a nanomaterial affect its therapeutic efficacy in cancer diagnosis and treatments. To tackle the above problem, the effects of size and shape of Cu2(OH)PO4 nanostructures (nanosheets and quantum dots) on the photodynamic therapy (PDT) in destroying malignant drug‐resistant lung tumors and on combating the tumor hypoxia problem are investigated and compared. The photocatalytic mechanism of Cu2(OH)PO4 nanostructures mainly involves the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as hydroxyl radical (·OH) and singlet oxygen (1O2). Under an oxygen deprivation condition, Cu2(OH)PO4 nanosheets still can generate OH radicals to kill cancer cells upon near‐infrared (NIR) light irradiation. Overall, in vitro and in vivo experiments show that Cu2(OH)PO4 nanosheets can overcome tumor hypoxia problems and effectively mediate dual modal PDT and photothermal therapeutic (PTT) effects on destruction of NCI‐H23 lung tumors in mice using ultralow doses (350 mW cm−2) of NIR (915 nm) light.

Multifunctional CuO/Cu2O Truncated Nanocubes as Trimodal Image-Guided Near-Infrared-III Photothermal Agents to Combat Multi-Drug-Resistant Lung Carcinoma

“…The 13 C NMR peak at 175 ppm indicates the formation of a −COOH functional group. 31 The plasmonic CuO/Cu 2 O TNCs did not show any noticeable changes in their morphology and optical characteristics after conjugation with the F127-COOH polymer (Figure S3(A) and (B)). Further, anti-EGFR moieties were chemically attached onto F127-COOH-coated plasmonic CuO/Cu 2 O TNCs via a 1ethyl-3-(3-(dimethylamino)propyl) carbodiimide (EDC)mediated coupling process.…”

“…The F127-COOH polymer was synthesized using the literature procedure, and the chemical structure was confirmed using 13 C NMR analysis (see Figure S2). The 13 C NMR peak at 175 ppm indicates the formation of a −COOH functional group . The plasmonic CuO/Cu 2 O TNCs did not show any noticeable changes in their morphology and optical characteristics after conjugation with the F127-COOH polymer (Figure S3­(A) and (B)).…”

Nanomedicine Combats Drug Resistance in Lung Cancer

“…[238] Hwang et al proposed a different strategy to treat drug-resistant hypoxic tumors. [273] They developed two types of Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanosystems: nanosheets and QDs, and compared the effect of their size and shape on destroying malignant and hypoxic drug-resistant lung tumors via PDT. The Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanosheets could produce OH radicals to eliminate cancer cells upon NIR light irradiation under an O 2 deprivation condition, thereby overcoming drug resistance in the hypoxic TME.…”

Recent Progress in the Development of Multifunctional Nanoplatform for Precise Tumor Phototherapy

“…[34] Hwang and co-workers prepared larger-sized Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanosheets and smaller-sized Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 quantum dots for tumor PDT, and systematically studied how the size and shape of nanomaterials affected their therapeutic effect in the treatment of drug-resistant lung tumors. [35] It was found that compared with small-sized spherical quantum dots, nanosheets with larger sizes have significant advantages in tumor passive targeting and ROS generation, providing a basis for optimizing the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials to improve PDT.…”