Dendritic organosilica nanospheres with large mesopores as multi-guests vehicle for photoacoustic/ultrasound imaging-guided photodynamic therapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a minimally invasive treatment strategy that uses photosensitizers and light in combination with oxygen to generate cytotoxic singlet oxygen (1O2) to kill cancer cells by necrosis or apoptosis. However, the treatment effects are still not satisfactory because of the tumor hypoxia and the PDT-induced oxygen consumption. Here, we have successfully synthesized dendritic mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (MONs) with large center-radial pore structure that can be used to simultaneously encapsulate indocyanine green (ICG, <1 nm) and macromolecule catalase (CAT, 2.0 nm × 6.0 nm × 9.0 nm) to overcome the tumor hypoxia. Upon 808 nm laser irradiation, ICG as the organic NIR dye can generate highly cytotoxic singlet oxygen (1O2) and other reactive oxygen species (ROS) to kill cancer cells and realize photoacoustic (PA) imaging. The catalase can decompose the endogenous H2O2 in malignant cancerous cells into O2 bubble to simultaneously intensify the ultrasound (US) imaging signal and enhance PDT efficacy. These results indicate that the ICG-CAT@MONs holds great promise in multimodal photoacoustic / ultrasound image-guided tumor PDT therapy.