Iron death therapy is the use of iron bioinducers to produce lethal lipid peroxidation to induce tumor cell death. It is also considered a promising cancer treatment strategy. However, how to increase the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the tumor microenvironment (TME) to improve its anti-tumor efficacy is still a research challenge. Professor Song Yang and Associate Professor Zhu Xiaokang from Southwest University designed a poly-nanosystem Fe3O4-PLGA-Ce6 coated with PLGA, containing iron oxide (Fe3O4) and photosensitizer Ce6, and used it to synergize iron death-photodynamics Anti-cancer treatment.






Key points of this article:

(1) Fe3O4-PLGA-Ce6 nanosystem can dissociate in acidic TME and release ferrous/iron ions and Ce6. Subsequently, the released ferrous/iron ions will react with excess hydrogen peroxide in the cells to produce a Fenton-like reaction to produce hydroxyl radicals (•OH), which induces tumor cell iron death. At the same time, the released Ce6 can increase the production and accumulation of ROS under laser irradiation for photodynamic therapy, thereby further enhancing the iron death effect in 4T1 cells.



(2) In addition, the magnetic monodisperse Fe3O4 also has excellent T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) performance. In summary, the Fe3O4-PLGA-Ce6 nanosystem can exert the synergistic effect of photodynamic-iron death anti-tumor therapy, and can produce tumor suppressive effects with high biocompatibility under the guidance of MRI.







references

Qifang Chen. et al. Iron-Based Nanoparticles for MR Imaging-Guided Ferroptosis in Combination with Photodynamic Therapy to Enhance Cancer Treatment. Nanoscale. 2021

DOI: 10.1039/D0NR08757B

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/nr/d0nr08757b#!divAbstract