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Gadolinium-containing semiconducting polymer nanoparticles for magnetic resonance/fluorescence dual-modal imaging and photothermal therapy of oral squamous cell carcinoma

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Abstract

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common malignant tumor of the oral and maxillofacial region. Due to its unique location, earlier and more accurate diagnosis and more minimally invasive treatment of OSCC is of major importance. Herein, gadolinium-containing semiconductor polymer nanoparticles (SPN-Gd) were designed and prepared. The nanoparticles consist of a near-infrared (NIR) absorption semiconductor polymer (PCPDTBT) served as fluorescence signal source and a photothermal conversion agent (PTA) and a gadolinium-grafted triblock amphiphilic copolymer (F127-DTPA-Gd) served as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent and nanocarrier. The experiments in vivo showed that SPN-Gd could act as an MRI contrast agent and optical image agent with a long retention time, and it had a significant inhibiting effect on tumors of OSCC mice model through photothermal therapy (PTT). Thus our study provides a simple nanotheranostic platform composed of two components for efficient MR/fluorescence dual-modal imaging-guided PTT.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 82201135, 22174070, and 61905122), Nanjing Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases (No. 2019060009), General project of Jiangsu Provincial Health Commission (No. M2021077), Scientific research fund of Jiangsu Medical Association (No. SYH-3201150-0007(2021002)), and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20190735).

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  1. Xiao Pan and Antian Gao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dentomaxillofacial Radiology, Affiliated Stomatology Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Xiao Pan, Antian Gao, Yanni Hu, Ziyang Hu & Zitong Lin

  2. Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays & Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biosensors, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing University of Posts & Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Chen Xie

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  1. Xiao Pan
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Correspondence to Chen Xie or Zitong Lin.

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Pan, X., Gao, A., Hu, Y. et al. Gadolinium-containing semiconducting polymer nanoparticles for magnetic resonance/fluorescence dual-modal imaging and photothermal therapy of oral squamous cell carcinoma. Nano Res. 16, 2808–2820 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4947-5

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