It remains a challenge to develop an effective therapeutic agent with low cost and good biocompatibility for cancer therapy. Based on its dark color, we hypothesized that, the extraction from black rice grains, denoted BRE, could serve as a photothermal conversion agent. The results showed that BRE confers a high photothermal conversion efficiency up to 54.13%. The combination of BRE and near infrared (NIR) treatment enables effective photothermal tumor ablation, and suppress tumor metastasis via inhibiting the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) pathway. In addition, BRE exhibits no obvious toxicity in vivo. Therefore, BRE could serve as a promising photothermal therapy agent with a low toxicity to treat cancer.

中文翻译：

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黑米提取物作为光热剂抑制肿瘤生长和转移

开发一种具有低成本和良好生物相容性的有效治疗剂用于癌症治疗仍然是一个挑战。基于其深色，我们假设从黑米粒中提取的 BRE 可以用作光热转换剂。结果表明，BRE 具有高达 54.13% 的高光热转换效率。BRE 和近红外 (NIR) 治疗的结合能够有效地光热消融肿瘤，并通过抑制上皮间质转化 (EMT) 途径来抑制肿瘤转移。此外，BRE在体内没有表现出明显的毒性。因此，BRE可以作为一种有前途的低毒性光热治疗剂来治疗癌症。