Ultra-small bimetallic iron–palladium (FePd) nanoparticle loaded macrophages for targeted tumor photothermal therapy in NIR-II biowindows and magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

Nanoparticles working in the NIR-II biowindows possess larger maximum permissible exposure (MPE) and desirable penetration depth to the laser. However, most NIR-II responsive nanomaterials lack tumor targeting and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) ability. This greatly limits their applications. This study reported ultra-small bimetallic iron-palladium (FePd) nanoparticle loaded macrophages for targeted tumor photothermal therapy in NIR-II biowindows and magnetic resonance imaging. The crystal phase, morphology, absorption spectrum and photothermal performance of the synthesized samples were systematically characterized. The effects of photothermal therapy and nuclear magnetic imaging (MRI) were studied both in vitro and in vivo. Since FePd nanoparticles have both iron and palladium elements, it had a good MRI imaging capability and high photothermal conversion efficiency (36.7%). After binding to macrophages, FePd nanoparticles@macrophages (FePd@M) showed a good tumor targeting ability and were used for targeting NIR-II photothermal therapy and MRI imaging of tumors. The results of photothermal treatment showed that the tumor volume decreased by 90% compared to the control group, and no significant organ toxicity was observed. The results of MRI imaging showed that the FePd@M has the best imaging effect. The nanoparticles with the excellent NIR-II PTT ability and MRI effect have overcome the problem of tumor targeting and avoid the rapid removal of ultra-small nanoparticles. The FePd@M delivery system provides new ideas for material construction in the NIR-II region and has great clinical application potential.

Engineered Macrophages: A Safe‐by‐Design Approach for the Tumor Targeting Delivery of Sub‐5 nm Gold Nanoparticles

“…However, NPs in the range of tens to hundreds of nanometers have mostly been applied for the development of macrophage-mediated drug delivery and cancer therapy, whilst NPs smaller than ten nanometers have long been ignored. [39] To the best of our knowledge, there are only two published literature addressing the feasibility of using macrophages for the delivery of ultrasmall NPs to tumors, [21,22] and no study has been conducted to compare the efficiency of macrophage-mediated active targeting with the EPR-mediated passive targeting for ultrasmall NPs. Thus, we next examined the performance of as-prepared Au NP-macrophage systems for tumor targeting using the subcutaneous tumor mouse model.…”

“…But the majority of methods reported in the literature to date used Au NPs with a size of tens to hundreds of nanometers for the cell-mediated tumor-targeting delivery, only a few studies have examined the feasibility of using immune cells or stem cells to deliver ultrasmall NPs. [21][22][23][24][25] The biggest challenge to deliver ultrasmall NPs to tumors is to guarantee the stability of NP-cell systems, because smaller NPs generally have a fast rate of exocytosis, leading to a rapid disassembly of NP-cell systems and redistribution of NPs in vivo. [26] Therefore, whether this kind of active tumor-targeting strategy works for the sub-5 nm Au NPs still needs to be demonstrated.…”

Utilization of metal or non-metal-based functional materials as efficient composites in cancer therapies

“…3C , Yang et al reported ultra-small bimetallic FePd-loaded macrophages for targeted tumor photothermal therapy in NIR-II bio-windows and magnetic resonance imaging. 55 In addition, the constructed porous Au@Pt structure was further explored for the properties of porous Au@Pt NPSs in relieving the oxidative stress damages as well as in tumor growth inhibition by chemo–photothermal co-therapy. The porous structure offered the possibility while using this structural space for medicine loading such as doxorubicin (DOX).…”

Bio-Nanocarriers for Lung Cancer Management: Befriending the Barriers

“…A tumor volume reduction of ~ 90%, with insignificant organ toxicity, was observed with the use of this nano-biohybrid as compared to the control group. The observed results present an excellent platform that can be explored further clinically for combining photodynamic therapy and MRI imaging [ 280 ].…”