Bioinspired red blood cell membrane-encapsulated biomimetic nanoconstructs for synergistic and efficacious chemo-photothermal therapy.

Recently, the fabrication of nanotechnology-based co-delivery systems has garnered enormous interest for efficacious cancer therapy. However, these systems still face certain challenges such as codelivery of drugs with different chemistries, inadequate loading efficiency, immune rejection resulting in rapid clearance and substantially poor bioavailability in vivo. To address the challenges, we have developed a biomimetic and stable design based on bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles that are encapsulated with a hydrophilic photothermal agent, indocyanine green (ICG), as well as a hydrophobic agent, gambogic acid (GA), via the desolvation method. Furthermore, these nanoconstructs have been coated with the red blood cell membranes (RBCm), which exhibit pronounced long-term circulation in addition to avoiding premature leakage of drugs. RBCm-coated BSA nanoparticles show a higher affinity towards both GA and ICG (RmGIB NPs), resulting in high loading efficiencies of 24.3 ± 1.2 % and 25.0 ± 1.2 %, respectively. Moreover, the bio-efficacy investigations of these biomimetic constructs (RmGIB NPs) in cells in vitro as well as in tumor-bearing mice in vivo confirm augmented inhibition, demonstrating potential synergistic chemo-photothermal therapeutic efficacy. Altogether, we provide an efficient delivery platform for designing and constructing BSA nanovehicles toward synergistic and effective co-delivery of therapeutics.