Multifunctional Reduced Graphene Oxide-Based Nanoplatform for Synergistic Targeted Chemo-Photothermal Therapy

Abstract

As for cancer treatments, synergistic therapy provides outstanding strategies to facilitate multiple anticancer pathways to induce improved therapeutic efficacy. Here, because of excellent physicochemical and biological properties, tea polyphenol-reduced and functionalized graphene oxide (TPG) was used to develop one single nanoplatform for synergistic targeted photo-chemotherapy. Specifically, a multifunctional nanoplatform with anti-PDL1-conjugated TPG (TPDL1) as a targeted therapy, loading the anticancer drug doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) on TPDL1 (TPD) as chemotherapy, and TPDL1 as a photothermal agent with near-infrared (NIR) irradiation as photothermal therapy (PTT) was constructed to reduce side effects and enhance the therapeutic efficacy. As expected, the nanoplatform showed NIR-enhanced, pH-responsive, and stable drug release behavior, targeting ability, and efficient photothermal conversion under NIR irradiation. Compared with pure DOX, TPD not only did protect normal cells from side effects but also efficiently enhanced the cytotoxicity in human tongue squamous cancer cells (CAL27) under NIR laser irradiation, which may be due to the synergistic effects between DOX-induced chemotherapy and TPDL1-elicited PTT. This study shows that the multifunctional reduced graphene oxide-based nanoplatform with combined targeted chemo-PTT has potential application values in cancer therapy.