Targeted nanosystem combined with chemo-photothermal therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma treatment

The multimodal therapies have showed significantly efficacy in clinical tumor treatment. Nanotechnology provides the powerful platform as multifunctional drug delivery system. Herein, graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets were prepared and modified with polyethylene glycol derivatives and lactobionic acid (LA), which improved their biocompatibility. The anticancer drug curcumin (CUR) that possess various biological effects was selected and successfully loaded onto the nanocomposites by pi-pi stacking. In vitro results showed that the formulation of GO-PEG/LA-CUR has good biosafety and the ability to specifically target hepatocellular carcinoma cells that overexpress asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR). The in vivo experiments also demonstrated excellent biodistribution of GO-PEG/LA-CUR nanocomposites. The tumor growth was significantly inhibited in subcutaneous HCC tumor-bearing mice treated with GO-PEG/LA-CUR after near-infrared (NIR) irradiation, with a tumor inhibition rate of 86 %, demonstrating the synergistic chemo-photothermal therapy (PTT) efficacy. The therapeutic nanocomposites can be a useful PTT-combined platform for the clinical HCC treatment.