Fabrication of denatured BSA-hemin-IR780 (dBHI) nanoplatform for synergistic combination of phototherapy and chemodynamic therapy

Combined photo-induced cancer therapy (photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT)) is a promising anti-cancer strategy for its non-invasiveness property. However, severe hypoxia in tumor microenvironment (TME) would weaken the PDT effect and limit the clinical efficiency of PTT/PDT treatment. To solve this problem, denatured BSA-hemin-IR780 (dBHI) was designed and synthesized for anti-cancer treatment in this work. Denatured bovine serum albumin (dBSA) was used as the binding matrix to bind hemin and IR780 via covalent reaction and hydrophobic self-assembly, respectively. The obtained dBHI nanoparticles possess both PTT and PDT effect due to the presence of IR780 in the composites. Moreover, because of the existence of hemin, dBHI also exhibited photo-enhanced Fenton-like catalytic performance, which could decompose H2O2 to form oxygen for improving the PDT effect and generate hydroxyl radical (·OH) for chemodynamic therapy (CDT). Therefore, by using dBHI, synergistic effect of PTT/PDT/CDT combined treatment has been achieved for cancer therapy.