NIR light-induced tumor phototherapy using ICG delivery system based on platelet-membrane-camouflaged hollow bismuth selenide nanoparticles

Abstract Near-infrared (NIR) light-triggered photothermal therapy (PTT) is a promising treatment strategy for treating cancer. The combination of nanotechnology and NIR has been widely applied. However, the therapeutic efficacy of the drug-delivery system depends on their ability to avoid phagocytosis of endothelial system, cross the biological barriers, prolong circulation life, localize and rapidly release the therapeutic at target sites. In this work, we designed a platelet membrane (PM)-camouflaged hollow mesoporous bismuth selenide nanoparticles (BS NPs) loading with indocyanine green (ICG) (PM@BS-ICG NPs) to achieve the above advantages. PM-coating has active tumor-targeting ability which could prevent drug leakage and provide drug long circulation, causing drug delivery systems to accumulate in tumor sites effectively. Moreover, as a type of the photothermal sensitizers, BS NPs are used as the inner cores to improve ICG stability and are served as scaffolds to enhance the hardness of this drug delivery system. For one hand, the thermal vibration of BS NPs under NIR laser irradiation causes tumor inhibition through hyperthermia. For another hand, this hyperthermia process could damage PM and let ICG rapid release from PM@BS-ICG NPs. The in vitro and in vivo results showed that this biomimetic nano-drug delivery system exhibits obvious antitumor activity which has good application prospect.