Multimodal imaging-guided chemo-photothermal therapy is an excellent cancer treatment, which can not only efficiently against tumor, but also can offer precise treatment window and real-time monitoring of the treatment efficiency. In our work, polydopamine (PDA)-coated gold nanobones (AuNBs@PDA nanocomplexes) were designed for this approach. The AuNBs@PDA nanocomplexes have strong absorbance in the near infrared (NIR) region and higher photothermal conversion efficiency (75.48 %) than gold nanobones alone, which was facilitated for photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. Besides, the loading efficiency of doxorubicin (DOX) by AuNBs@PDA nanocomplexes could be up to about 70 % and DOX release from AuNBs@PDA/DOX nanocomplexes sensitively response to the lower pH environment and NIR laser irradiation, which makes them become the excellent nano-carrier for the delivery of chemotherapy drug. In vitro and in vivo studies showed significant cytotoxicity and antitumor efficacy by the AuNBs@PDA/DOX nanoplatform with negligible side effects. Meanwhile, the nanoplatform was also successfully employed for computed tomography (CT) imaging, attributing to the high atomic number and high X-ray attenuation coefficient of gold. Therefore, we believed that the proposed PDA-coated gold nanobones would be a novel multifunctional theranostic nanoagent to realize the PA/CT imaging-guided chemo-photothermal therapy of cancer.

多模式成像引导化学光热疗法是一种出色的癌症治疗方法，不仅可以有效地对抗肿瘤，而且可以提供精确的治疗窗口和实时监测治疗效果。在我们的工作中，为此方法设计了聚多巴胺（PDA）涂层的金纳米骨（AuNBs @ PDA纳米复合物）。AuNBs @ PDA纳米复合物在近红外（NIR）区域具有很强的吸收性，比单独的金纳米碳具有更高的光热转换效率（75.48％），这有助于光声成像和光热疗法。此外，AuNBs @ PDA纳米复合物对阿霉素（DOX）的负载效率可高达70％左右，而AuNBs @ PDA / DOX纳米复合物对DOX的释放对低pH环境和NIR激光辐照敏感。体外和体内研究表明，AuNBs @ PDA / DOX纳米平台具有显着的细胞毒性和抗肿瘤功效，且副作用可忽略不计。同时，由于金的高原子序数和高X射线衰减系数，纳米平台也成功地用于计算机断层扫描（CT）成像。因此，我们认为，提出的PDA包覆的金纳米骨将是一种新型的多功能治疗药物纳米剂，可以实现PA / CT成像引导的化学光热疗法。