%0 Journal Article
%T Carrier-free chemo-phototherapeutic nanomedicines with endo/lysosomal escape function enhance the therapeutic effect of drug molecules in tumors.
%A Feng X
%A Brown CM
%A Wang H
%A Kashif S
%A Roberts S
%A Yan L
%A Munshi T
%A Hands PJW
%A Zhang W
%A Chen X
%J J Mater Chem B
%V 12
%N 27
%D 2024 Jul 10
%M 38895858
%F 7.571
%R 10.1039/d4tb00465e
%X Carrier-free nanomedicines offer advantages of extremely high drug loading capacity (>80%), minimal non-drug constituent burden, and facile preparation processes. Numerous studies have proved that multimodal cancer therapy can enhance chemotherapy efficiency and mitigate multi-drug resistance (MDR) through synergistic therapeutic effects. Upon penetration into the tumor matrix, nanoparticles (NPs) are anticipated to be uptaken by cancer cells, primarily through clathrin-meditated endocytosis pathways, leading to their accumulation in endosomes/lysosomes within cells. However, endo/lysosomes exhibit a highly degradative environment for organic NPs and drug molecules, often resulting in treatment failure. Hence, this study designed a lysosomal escape mechanism with carrier-free nanomedicine, combining the chemotherapeutic drug, curcumin (Cur), and the photothermal/photodynamic therapeutic drug, indocyanine green (ICG), for synergistic cancer treatment (ICG-Cur NPs) via a facile preparation process. To facilitate endo/lysosomal escape, ICG-Cur NPs were modified with metal-phenolic networks (MPNs) of different thickness. The results indicate that a thick MPN coating promotes rapid endo/lysosomal escape of ICG-Cur NPs within 4 h and enhances the photothermal conversion efficiency of ICG-Cur NPs by 55.8%, significantly improving anticancer efficacy in both chemo- and photo-therapies within 3D solid tumor models. This finding underscores the critical role of endo/lysosomal escape capacity in carrier-free drug NPs for therapeutic outcomes and offers a facile solution to achieve it.