A general in-situ reduction method to prepare core-shell liquid-metal / metal nanoparticles for photothermally enhanced catalytic cancer therapy.

Abstract

Gallium indium (GaIn) alloy as a kind of liquid metal (LM) with unique chemical and physical properties has attracted increasing attention for its potential biomedical applications. Herein, a series of core-shell GaIn@Metal (Metal: Pt, Au, Ag, and Cu) heterogeneous nanoparticles (NPs) are obtained by a simple in-situ reduction method. Take core-shell GaIn@Pt NPs for example, the synthesized GaIn@Pt NPs after Pt growth on their surface showed significantly improved photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) and thermal stability under near-infrared (NIR) II light irradiation. Moreover, the core-shell GaIn@Pt NPs also exhibited good Fenton-like catalytic effect due to the presence of Pt on their surface, and could convert tumor endogenous H₂O₂ to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) for cancer cell killing. With biocompatible polyethylene glycol (PEG) modification, such GaIn@Pt-PEG NPs showed efficient tumor homing after intravenous injection, and could lead to effective NIR II triggered photothermal-chemodynamic synergistic therapy of tumors as evidenced in a mouse tumor model. Our work highlights the ingenious use of the chemical properties of metals, providing a rather simple route for the surface engineering of LM-based multifunctional nanoplatforms to achieve a variety of functionalities.