Recently, Dr. Guorui Jin and Ph.D. student Rongyan He from BEBC have published a paper
in International Journal of ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES entitled
" Theranostics of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Based on Conjugated
Polymer Nanoparticles ".
This diagramm show how CP nanoparticles treat TNBC
In this paper, they’ve developed kind of method to treat triple negative
breast cancer (TNBC). TNBC does not respond to many targeted drugs due to the
lack of three receptors (i.e., estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and
human epidermal growth factor receptor-2), which makes it difficult for TNBC
detection and treatment. As compared to traditional breast cancer treatments
such as surgery and chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy (PDT) has emerged as a
promising approach for treating TNBC due to its precise controllability, high spatiotemporal
accuracy and minimal invasive nature. However, traditional photosensitizers
used in PDT are associated with limitations of aggregation caused quenching
(ACQ) and the ACQ-induced significant decrease in reactive oxygen species (ROS)
generation. To address these, we synthesized a cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic
acid (cRGD) peptide decorated conjugated polymer (CP) nanoparticles with
poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MEH-PPV)
as the photosensitizer for the theranostics of TNBC. The synthesized CP
nanoparticles show bright fluorescence with high stability and could
effectively produce ROS under light irradiation. Cell viability studies showed
that the CP nanoparticles have negligible dark cytotoxicity and could efficiently
kill the αvβ3 integrin overexpressed MDA-MB-231 cells (one subtype of TNBC
cells) in a selective way. With the use of cRGD modified MEH-PPV nanoparticles
as the theranostic agent, it permits targeted imaging and PDT of TNBC both in in
vitro 3D tumor model and in living mice. The application of CP nanoparticles in
the successful theranostics of TNBC could pave the way for future development
of CP-based photosensitizers for clinical applications.
