The Therapeutic Effect of Second Near-Infrared Absorbing Gold Nanorods on Metastatic Lymph Nodes via Lymphatic Delivery System

Abstract

Photothermal therapy has been established recently as a non-invasive treatment protocol for cancer metastatic lymph nodes. Although this treatment approach shows efficient tumour ablation towards lymph node metastasis, the monitoring and reporting of treatment progress using the lymphatic delivery channel still need to be explored. Herein, we investigated the anti-tumour effect of pegylated gold nanorods with a high aspect ratio (PAuNRs) delivered via the lymphatic route in a mouse model. In this study, breast carcinoma (FM3A-Luc) cells were inoculated in the subiliac lymph node (SiLN) to induce metastasis in the proper axillary lymph node (PALN). The treatment was initiated by injecting the PAuNRs into the accessory axillary lymph node (AALN) after tumour metastasis was confirmed in the PALN followed by external NIR laser irradiation under a temperature-controlled cooling system. The anti-tumour impact of the treatment was evaluated using an in vivo bioluminescence imaging system (IVIS). The results showed a time-dependent reduction in tumour activity with significant treatment response. Tumour growth was inhibited in all mice treated with PAuNRs under laser irradiation; results were statistically significant (** p < 0.01) even after treatment was concluded on day 3. We believe that this non-invasive technique would provide more information on the dynamics of tumour therapy using the lymphatically administered route in preclinical studies.

Photothermal and Photodynamic Therapy of Tumors with Plasmonic Nanoparticles: Challenges and Prospects

“…AuNRs were incorporated into mesoporous silica [97,98], biodegradable polymeric matrix [99], and liposomes to facilitate the targeted release of ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes [100]. For more detailed information, the readers are referred to resent original papers [101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109] and related citations in recent reviews [77,[110][111][112][113][114][115].…”

Thermal and Medium Stability Study of Polyvidone-Modified Graphene Oxide-Coated Gold Nanorods with High Photothermal Efficiency

“…Currently, different coating materials, such as polymers (polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)) [6][7][8][9][10][11], biomolecules [12][13][14], and graphene-based materials (graphene oxide (GO)) [10,[15][16][17][18][19], have been employed to reduce the toxicity of AuNRs. Among these materials, graphene-based AuNRs has been shown to be more effective as they minimise toxicity and simultaneously increase photothermal efficiency, in particular, GO [10,[15][16][17][18]20].…”

Synthesis of NIR-II Absorbing Gelatin Stabilized Gold Nanorods and Its Photothermal Therapy Application against Fibroblast Histiocytoma Cells

“…Plasmonic photothermal therapy (PPTT) is a minimally invasive treatment that depends on light irradiation, and it has been widely endorsed for therapeutic application [1]. Noble metallic nanomaterials such as gold nanorods (Au-NRs) are the most studied materials in PPTT due to their surface plasmon resonance (SPR) modes which can be tuned between the first and second near-infrared window [2][3][4][5]. Au-NRs absorbing in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window (1000-1100 nm) are highly desirable to treat deep-seated tumors [3,5].…”

“…Noble metallic nanomaterials such as gold nanorods (Au-NRs) are the most studied materials in PPTT due to their surface plasmon resonance (SPR) modes which can be tuned between the first and second near-infrared window [2][3][4][5]. Au-NRs absorbing in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window (1000-1100 nm) are highly desirable to treat deep-seated tumors [3,5]. However, surfactant-induced cytotoxicity of Au-NRs is a major limitation.…”

“…Pharmaceuticals 2021, 14, 1137 2 of 13 Many types of surface modifications of Au-NRs by different species such as synthetic polymers [3,[13][14][15][16], MXenes [17], Oxides [7,18,19], biopolymers [20,21], proteins [22][23][24], and organic molecules [25] have been reported for biomedical applications. Though some of these surface modifications are very effective, the procedures are complex, expensive, unstable, and often time-consuming [19].…”