Gold nanostars loaded erythrocyte ghost membrane for bioimaging and enhanced PTT and PDT treatment

Wrenit Gem Pearl Irudaya Raj^1*, Artashes V. Karmenyan¹, Elena V. Perevedentseva², Shih-Che Hung³, Hsin-Hou Chang³, Chia-Liang Cheng¹

¹Physics, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien County, Taiwan
²Physics, Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
³Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Tzu-Chi University, Hualien County, Taiwan

* Presenter:Wrenit Gem Pearl Irudaya Raj, email:wrenit3@gmail.com

Cancer has been one of the leading causes of death globally. Although light-mediated therapies have been exploited as minimally invasive techniques for ablation of various tumors, certain types of tumor remain challenging to completely obliterate due to severe hypoxic microenvironment. In this regard, gold nanostars (AuNSts) have been evidenced with dual photo based photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) abilities, generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) for PDT and inducing an incomparable light-to-heat conversion for ablating tumor environment under near infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. Herein, AuNSts with plasmon absorption peak around 800 nm wavelength was synthesized and loaded onto erythrocyte ghosts. The intracellular localization of AuNSt@ghosts was visualized using two-photon FLIM. A strong emission of AuNSts at two-photon excitation was observed with estimated fluorescence lifetime of 0.5 ns. The enhanced antitumor effect of AuNSts were confirmed in 2D monolayer and 3D spheroid cultures under 808 nm laser irradiation. The obtained results demonstrate that AuNSt@ghost can work as an oxygen vehicle, offering an enhanced therapeutic effect. Therefore, AuNSt@ghost can be considered as a novel biomimetic agent for nanotheranostics applications.

Keywords: Gold nanostars, Nanotheranostics, Cancer, Photothermal therapy, Photodynamic therapy