Cancer-Cell-Biomimetic Carbazole-Based AIE Nanoplatform for Phototheranostics of Cancer

Lung cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers and is the leading cause of cancer death. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been considered as a promising strategy due to its strong efficacy and negligible side effects. The development of potent PDT agents with an excellent tumor targeting capability is highly desirable but still not satisfied. In this work, we report a highly efficacious organic nanoplatform based on an aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen) and biomimetic modification for precise phototheranostics of lung cancer. An AIEgen with strong light absorption ability and bright deep red/near-infrared emission is designed and synthesized that possesses both type I and type II PDT processes. The AIEgen is encapsulated into nanoparticles (NPs) and further camouflaged with a Lewis lung carcinoma cell membrane to build a biomimetic nanoplatform. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments indicate that the cancer-cell-biomimetic NPs could significantly increase the tumor cell targeting ability and sensitively delineate the tumor site. Moreover, the cell-membrane-camouflaged NPs also show excellent antitumor efficacy in lung-cancer-bearing mice. This work demonstrates that the integration of highly efficient AIEgen and biomimetic cell membranes is able to boost the phototheranostic efficacy, representing a promising strategy for precise cancer diagnosis and treatment.