Vapreotide-Mediated Hierarchical Mineralized Au/Ag nanoshells for Photothermal Anti-Tumor Therapy

摘要： A new type of vapreotide-template Ag/Au bimetallic nanoshells (Vap@Ag/AuNSs) were successfully designed and fabricated based on polypeptide-directed mineralization and hierarchical self-assembly mechanisms under mild synthetic conditions. The nanoparticles with polypeptides serving as a core and coating Ag/Au bimetallic nanoshells exhibit diverse advantages such as excellent biocompatibility, tumor targeting and low-cost. The Vap@Ag/AuNSs share excellent dispersibility, uniform size (120 nm) and a positive zeta potential (36.74±4.49 mV), hence they easily accumulate in negatively charged tumor tissue. The results of thermal imaging, temperature variation assay and photothermal conversion efficiency (41.6%) indicated that Vap@Ag/AuNSs have excellent photothermal conversion capability. Based on their photothermal response as well as biocompatibility determined by MTT assay, the prominent anti-tumor effects of Vap@Ag/AuNSs have been verified by fluorescein diacetate staining. Therefore, Vap@Ag/AuNSs are novel and promising candidates for photothermal tumor therapy.