PNNL

Abstract

Near-infrared (NIR) laser-induced phototherapy through NIR agents has demonstrated the great potential for cancer therapy. However, insufficient tumor killing due to the nonuniform heat or cytotoxic singlet oxygen (1O2) distribution over tumors from phototherapy results in tumor recurrence and inferior outcomes. To achieve high tumor killing efficacy, one of the solutions is to employ the combinational treatment of phototherapy with other modalities, especially with chemotherapeutic agents. In this paper, a simple and effective multimodal therapeutic system was designed via combining chemotherapy, photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) to achieve the polytherapy of malignant glioma which is one of the most aggressive tumors in the brain. IR-780 dye (IR780) labeled tube-forming peptoids (PepIR) were synthesized and self-assembled into crystalline nanotubes (PepIR nanotubes). These PepIR nanotubes showed an excellent e?cacy for PDT/PTT because the IR780 photosensitizers were effectively packed and separated from each other within crystalline nanotubes by tuning IR780 density, thus a self-quenching of these IR780 molecules was significantly reduced. Moreover, the high DOX-loading as a result of nanotube large surface area contributed to an efficient and synergistic chemotherapy against glioma cells. Given the unique properties of peptoids and peptoid nanotubes, we believe that the developed multimodal DOX-loaded PepIR nanotubes in this work offer great promises for future glioma therapy in clinic.