In situ growth of MoS2@AuNRs nanoparticles with synergistically enhanced NIR response for controlled drug release

MoS 2 nanosheets have received a lot of favor in biomedical applications due to their outstanding near-infrared (NIR) responsiveness. However, the poor aqueous dispersibility of MoS 2 limits their biomedical application. In this paper, in-situ growth method was applied to integrate gold nanorods (AuNRs) with MoS 2 , and then MoS 2 @AuNRs/HAP/PDA (denoted as MAHP) was prepared by introducing hydroxyapatite (HAP) and polydopamine (PDA) into MoS 2 @AuNRs (MA) via self-assembly approach. In-situ grown MA inhibited the aggregation of MoS 2 due to the insertion of AuNRs between MoS 2 nanolayers. Therefore, MA revealed excellent aqueous dispersibility and synergistically enhanced NIR photothermal responsiveness (42.16% of photothermal conversion efficiency). In addition, MAHP exhibited outstanding DOX loading capacity (80%) and distinct pH-/NIR- dual responsive drug release properties, owing to the structural collapse of HAP in acidic medium and the excellent NIR responsiveness of MA. In vitro cell viability results revealed that MAHP could effectively kill MCF-7 cells under the dual effect of NIR laser irradiation and acidic medium. This paper presents a feasible process to prepare MoS 2 -based nanoparticles with NIR/pH dual-responsive release properties, which shows great potential in controlled photothermal therapy field.