Mesoporous Silica-Coated Gold Nanorods as a Light-Mediated Multifunctional Theranostic Platform for Cancer Treatment

摘要

The unique physicochemical properties of nanomaterials have offered an opportunity to integrate different theranostic modalities into a single nanoplatform for combined cancer treatments with real-time diagnosis.In particular, gold nanostructures (AuNSs), such as gold nanorods (AuNRs) and nanoshells are being actively studied as a promising and versatile platform for cancer theragnosis.Due to tunable localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), AuNSs are not only attractive probes for cancer cell imaging,but they can also become highly localized heat sources when irradiated with a laser through the photothermal effect.The generated heat can be used to provide hyperthermal cancer therapy and/or to trigger drug release for chemo-therapeutics when AuNSs serve as an anticancer-drug carrier.