Polydopamine-coated ferric oxide nanoparticles for R848 delivery for photothermal immunotherapy in breast cancer

Breast cancer, which requires comprehensive multifunctional treatment strategies, is a major threat to the health of women. To develop multifunctional treatment strategies, we combined photothermal therapy (PTT) with immunotherapy in multifunctional nanoparticles for enhancing the anti-tumor efficacy. Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles coated with the polydopamine shell modified with polyethylene glycol and cyclic arginine-glycyl-aspartic peptide/anisamide (tNP) for loading the immune adjuvant resiquimod (R848) ( [email protected] ) were developed in this research. [email protected] had a round-like morphology with a mean diameter of 174.7±3.8 nm, the zeta potential of -20.9±0.9 mV, the drug loading rate of 9.2±1.1%, the encapsulation efficiency of 81.7±3.2%, high photothermal conversion efficiency and excellent magnetic properties in vitro . Furthermore, this research also explored the anticancer efficacy of nanoparticles against the breast cancer under the near-infrared (NIR) light (808 nm) in vitro and in vivo . [email protected] NIR therapy effectively inhibited the proliferation of breast cancer cells. Moreover, [email protected] mediated PTT significantly enhanced the maturation of dendritic cells in vitro . Additionally, [email protected] enhances the anti-tumor effect and evoked an immune response under NIR in vivo . Furthermore, the biosafety of [email protected] was fully investigated in this study. Collectively, these results clearly demonstrate that [email protected] , with magnetic resonance imaging characteristics, is a potential therapeutic for breast cancer that combines PTT with the immunotherapy.