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 H 2 O 2 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.