Marriage of black phosphorus and Cu2+ as effective photothermal agents for PET-guided combination cancer therapy

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Kuan Hu, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Lin Xie, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Yiding Zhang, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Masayuki Hanyu, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Zhimin Yang, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Kotaro Nagatsu, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Hisashi Suzuki, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba; Jiang Ouyang, Harvard Medical School; Xiaoyuan Ji, Harvard Medical School; Junjie Wei, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University; Hao Xu, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University; Omid C. Farokhzad, Harvard Medical School; Steven Huan Liang, Emory University; Lu Wang, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University; Wei Tao, Harvard Medical School; Ming-Rong Zhang, National Institute of Radiological Sciences Chiba
• Language: English
• Date: 2020-12-01
• Publisher: Nature
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © The Author(s) 2020
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16513-0
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Nature Communications
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Start Page: 2778
• End Page: 2778
• Grant/Funding Information: We are sincerely grateful for the financial support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of the Japanese Government (Basic Research B: No. 17H04267, M.-R.Z.; Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists: No. 19K17156, K.H.; Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up: No. 18H06217, K.H.), National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology of Japan (Granted FY2019 Diversity Promotion Collaborative Research Subsidy, Presidential strategic fund for budding research, K.H.), U.S. METAvivor Early Career Investigator Award (No. 2018A020560, W.T.), Harvard Medical School (HMS)/Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Department of Anesthesiology-Basic Scientist Grant (No. 2420 BPA075, W.T.), Stepping Strong Breakthrough Innovator Award, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81701751, L.W.; 81871383, H.X.) and the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou (201804010440, L.W.).
• Keywords: Copper; Hyperthermia, Induced; Positron-Emission Tomography; Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; Theranostic Nanomedicine; Neoplasms; Ions; Mice; Phosphorus; Polyethylene Glycols; Animals; Nanostructures; Combined Modality Therapy; Oligopeptides; Phototherapy; Cell Line, Tumor; Humans; Cell Death
• Research Categories: Chemistry, Organic; Health Sciences, Radiology; Health Sciences, Rehabilitation and Therapy

Abstract

The use of photothermal agents (PTAs) in cancer photothermal therapy (PTT) has shown promising results in clinical studies. The rapid degradation of PTAs may address safety concerns but usually limits the photothermal stability required for efficacious treatment. Conversely, PTAs with high photothermal stability usually degrade slowly. The solutions that address the balance between the high photothermal stability and rapid degradation of PTAs are rare. Here, we report that the inherent Cu2+-capturing ability of black phosphorus (BP) can accelerate the degradation of BP, while also enhancing photothermal stability. The incorporation of Cu2+ into BP@Cu nanostructures further enables chemodynamic therapy (CDT)-enhanced PTT. Moreover, by employing 64Cu2+, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging can be achieved for in vivo real-time and quantitative tracking. Therefore, our study not only introduces an “ideal” PTA that bypasses the limitations of PTAs, but also provides the proof-of-concept application of BP-based materials in PET-guided, CDT-enhanced combination cancer therapy.