MOLECULAR ASSEMBLY OF DNA APTAMER AND PHOTOSENSITIZER FOR TARGETING CANCER THERAPY

摘要

The target-specific, synergistic photothermal and photodynamic therapy (PDT) was realized by using an activatable aptamer probe (AAP) to link the Chlorin e6 (Ce6), a photosensitizer molecule, to the gold nanorods surface. The multifunctional conjugated AuNRs-AAP-Ce6 complex also shows high photothermal effect to kill target cancer cells. As expected, in comparison with Ce6 or nanorods alone, the AuNRs-AAPCe6 complex offers a remarkably improved therapeutic effect More importantly, one single gold nanorods can be conjugated with large amount of AAP, resulting in the enhanced binding of AAP with target cancer cells compared with AAP alone. The photothermal effect of AuNRs can be further utilized to promote the dehybridization of AAP molecules by laser irradiation to free ce6 from gold surface, which further enhances the PDT efficacy against cancer cells. The promising strategy of AuNRs-AAP-Ce6 for cancer multi-modetherapies is expected to be generalized to more types of cancer therapies.