A chemophotothermal and targeting multifunctional nanoprobe with a tumor-diagnosing ability

The development of multifunctional nanoparticles for diagnosis and therapy of cancer has been a focus of research in recent years. Owing to excellent properties of chemophotothermal therapy and tumor targeting accompanied by magnetic resonance (MR) or computed tomography (CT) imaging, mesoporous silica has been widely applied to tumor diagnosing carriers. However, previous research focused more on chemotherapy combined with photothermal therapeutic strategies but ignored intuitive assessment of tumors. In this work, we report a novel nanoprobe consisting of hyaluronic-acid–modified Gold Nanorods@mSiO2@Mn@DOX (GNR@MMH@DOX) nanoparticles, which realize multifunctional integration of therapeutics and imaging. Au nanorods (GNRs) were synthesized without a seed precursor by a water bath method, then sequentially modified with mesoporous silica, doped with Mn²⁺, and loaded with doxorubicin in a solution. In vitro and in vivo assays verified their great biocompatibility, good stability, and attractive specificity of targeting to receptor CD44, which is overexpressed on cancer cells. In addition, GNR@MMH nanoparticles proved to be a more distinguishable CT/MR imaging contrast compared to commercial contrast agents. The article demonstrates promising composition for CT/MR imaging and photothermal therapy of tumors, giving new insights into the diagnosis and therapy of different kinds of malignant tumors.