Tumor-Targeted and Biocompatible MoSe2 Nanodots@Albumin Nanospheres as a Dual-Modality Therapy Agent for Synergistic Photothermal Radiotherapy

Integrating multiple tumor therapy functions into one nanoplatform has been a new tumor therapy strategy in recent years. Herein, a dual-modality therapy agent consisting of molybdenum selenide nanodots (MoSe 2 NDs) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) assembled nanospheres (MoSe 2 @BSA NSs) was successfully synthesized. After conjugation of folic acid (FA) molecules via polyethylene glycol (PEG) “bridges,” the FA-MoSe 2 @BSA NSs were equipped with tumor-targeting function. The BSA and PEG modifications provided the unstable MoSe 2 NDs with excellent physiological stability. Since the end-product FA-MoSe 2 @BSA NSs had strong near-infrared (NIR) and X-ray absorbance properties, they exhibited good photothermal properties with excellent photothermal stability and radio-sensitization ability, hence, were explored as photothermal radiotherapy agents. In vitro and in vivo experiments indicated that the FA-MoSe 2 @BSA NSs possessed highly efficient tumor-targeting effect, great biocompability, and synergistic photothermal radiotherapy effect. This work suggests that such biocompatible FA-MoSe 2 @BSA NSs may be a promising multifunctional dual-modality tumor therapy agent for use in combination tumor therapy.