Researchers Design Smart Nanoparticles That Light Up Tumors While Killing Them
Scientists have created a dual-function treatment that uses near-infrared light to both destroy cancer cells and generate real-time images of tumors as therapy unfolds. The advance could streamline cancer drug development by enabling doctors to see treatment effectiveness instantly, reducing the need for separate diagnostic imaging and cutting costs in clinical trials.
Originaltitel: A MOF-Lanthanide Theranostic Agent with Bidirectional Near-Infrared Photon Conversion for Tumor-Responsive Therapy and Real-Time Imaging
Smart tumor-responsive theranostic agents are crucial for advancing precision medicine by enabling targeted drug delivery with minimal off-target effects and allowing real-time monitoring of therapeutic outcomes. Although metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) hold promises as nanocarriers, they often lack integrated, stimuli-responsive imaging and therapeutic capabilities. Here, we present a multifunctional MOF-lanthanide theranostic agent featuring bidirectional near-infrared (NIR) photon conversion for image-guided, tumor-specific therapy. The MOF carrier MIL-53(Fe) encapsulates curcumin, a natural photosensitizer and chemotherapeutic agent, which is selectively released in the acidic tumor microenvironment via pH-triggered framework degradation. This degradation also releases Fe3+ ions, initiating Fenton reactions to produce hydroxyl radicals for chemodynamic therapy (CDT). Lanthanide nanoparticles, satellited on the MOF, enable NIR-to-visible/ultraviolet upconversion to activate curcumin for photodynamic therapy (PDT), as well as NIR-to-NIR II (∼1530 nm) downshifting emission for deep-tissue imaging in vivo. Notably, the NIR II luminescence, initially quenched by metallic node ions (Fe3+) in MOF, is restored during MOF degradation, allowing semi-quantitative visualization of drug release. In vivo NIR-II imaging demonstrates peak tumor accumulation of the agent at 24 h postinjection and near-complete systemic clearance by day 14. This platform achieves a synergistic chemotherapy/CDT/PDT effect, with about 80% cell-killing efficiency and a 15-fold tumor inhibition compared to controls, highlighting its potential as an efficient theragnostic agent for precision oncology.