Morphological and constituent viral-mimicking self-assembled nanoparticles promote cellular uptake and improve cancer therapeutic efficiency in vivo

The delivery of nanomaterials or therapeutics into cells takes a decisive role for their applications in nanomedicine. Nature's creations such as viruses provide valued inspiration for design of nano-architectures in cellular delivery. We report herein the fabrication of biodegradable and biocompatible nanoparticles (NPs) with viral-mimicking morphology and constituents as a nanoplatform, which has rarely been reported to the best of our knowledge, for promoting cellular uptake and achieving high therapeutic efficiency in vivo . The chitosan-porphyrin-based NPs were endowed with a viral-imitating morphology through a novel pH-responsive decomposition-induced self-assembly method. By successive conjugation of Tat peptides and modification of lipids, morphological and constituent viral-mimicking NPs were obtained. Compared with the counterpart of non-viral-mimicking NPs, the viral-mimicking NPs showed prominent superiority in enhancing cell internalization (10 times higher). Loading of near-infrared photosensitizer– indocyanine green into these NPs demonstrated the striking capability of the viral-mimicking nanoparticles in therapeautic delivery and photothermal anti-tumor effect in vitro and in vivo . This concept and strategy provides an enlightening methodology on the design and fabrication of therapeutic delivery systems, which is significant for nanobiotechnology.