Carrier-free, Chemo-photodynamic Dual Nanodrugs Via Self-assembly For Synergistic Anti-Tumor Therapy

There are tremendous challenges from both tumor and its therapeutic formulations affecting the effective treatment of tumor, including tumor recurrence and complex multi-step preparation procedures of formulation. To address these, herein a simple and green self-assembly approach between photosensitizer(chlorine e6, Ce6) and chemotherapeutic agent(doxorubicin, DOX) was developed to prepare carrier-free nanoparticles(NPs) with ability of inhibition of tumor recurrence.Firstly, the designed NPs have uniform size of 70 nm, surface charge of-20 mV and high drug encapsulation efficiency, which assist their escape from the opsonin by reticular endothelial system(RES) and benefit their subsequent enhanced permeability and retention(EPR) effect, and thus accumulation in tumor.Also, they could eradiate the tumor without recurrence in a synergistic way in terms of inhibition of multi-drug resistance(MDR) of DOX with the help of photodynamic therapy(PDT) and effective killing deep-seated tumor cells by DOX molecules for compensation of limited tissue penetration ability of PDT. The rationale of these pure nanodrugs via self-assembly approach might open an alternative avenue and give inspiration to fabricate new carrier-free nanodrugs for tumor theranostics, especially for two small molecular anti-tumor drugs with the aim of combinational anti-tumor therapy in a synergistic way.