Phototherapy, including photothermal therapy (PTT) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted growing attention as a noninvasive option for cancer treatment. At present, researchers have developed various “all-in-one” nanoplatforms for cancer imaging and PTT/PDT combinational therapy. However, the complex structure, tedious preparation procedures, overuse of extra carriers and severe side effects hinder their biomedical applications. In this work, we reported a nanoplatform (designated as ICG-MB) self-assembly from two different FDA-approved dyes of indocyanine green (ICG) and methylene blue (MB) without any additional excipients for cancer fluorescence imaging and combinational PTT/PDT. ICG-MB was found to exhibit good dispersion in the aqueous phase and improve the photostability and cellular uptake of free ICG and MB, thus exhibiting enhanced photothermal conversion and singlet oxygen (¹O₂) generation abilities to robustly ablate cancer cells under 808 nm and 670 nm laser irradiation. After intravenous injection, ICG-MB effectively accumulated at tumor sites with a near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence signal, which helped to delineate the targeted area for NIR laser-triggered phototoxicity. As a consequence, ICG-MB displayed a combinational PTT/PDT effect to potently inhibit tumor growth without causing any system toxicities in vivo. In conclusion, this minimalist, effective and biocompatible nanotheranostic would provide a promising candidate for cancer phototherapy based on current available dyes in clinic.

中文翻译：

---

由临床批准的染料自组装的无载体纳米治疗，用于癌症荧光成像和光热/光动力组合治疗


光疗法，包括光热疗法（PTT）和光动力疗法（PDT）作为癌症治疗的非侵入性选择越来越受到关注。目前，研究人员已开发出多种用于癌症成像和PTT/PDT联合治疗的“一体化”纳米平台。然而，复杂的结构、繁琐的制备过程、过度使用额外的载体以及严重的副作用阻碍了它们的生物医学应用。在这项工作中，我们报道了一种纳米平台（称为 ICG-MB），由 FDA 批准的两种不同染料吲哚菁绿（ICG）和亚甲蓝（MB）自组装而成，无需任何额外的赋形剂，用于癌症荧光成像和组合 PTT/PDT 。研究发现 ICG-MB 在水相中表现出良好的分散性，并提高了游离 ICG 和 MB 的光稳定性和细胞摄取，从而表现出增强的光热转换和单线态氧 ( ¹ O ₂ ) 生成能力，可在 808 nm 和670 nm 激光照射。静脉注射后，ICG-MB 有效地在肿瘤部位积累，并发出近红外 (NIR) 荧光信号，这有助于描绘 NIR 激光触发光毒性的目标区域。因此，ICG-MB 表现出 PTT/PDT 组合效应，可有效抑制肿瘤生长，且不会在体内引起任何系统毒性。总之，这种简约、有效且生物相容的纳米治疗将为基于目前临床可用染料的癌症光疗提供有前途的候选药物。