Sun Lu, Gong Peiwei, Liu Xicheng, Pang Minghui, Tian Meng, Chen Jinyu, Du Jiuyao, Liu Zhe
Institute of Anticancer Agents Development and Theranostic Application, The Key Laboratory of Life-Organic Analysis and Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Intermediates and Analysis of Natural Medicine, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Qufu Normal University, Qufu 273165, P. R. China.
J Mater Chem B. 2017 Aug 14;5(30):6128-6137. doi: 10.1039/c7tb01155e. Epub 2017 Jul 24.
Although biomedical applications of carbon materials such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene have been intensively studied in recent years owing to their unique chemical and physical properties, fluorinated carbon fiber (FC) has been rarely explored in biomedicine, mostly because of it's large-size, needle-like structure and strong hydrophobicity. In this study, for the first time we developed a novel FC-based nano-carrier with good biocompatibility, high drug-loading capacity and enhanced photo-thermal performance. A simple and feasible strategy is first employed to transform commercial FC into nano-sized ones with good solubility in both water and culture medium. The changes in surface wettability then facilitated us to load doxorubicin (DOX) onto the FC viaπ-π stacking interactions. Successful regulation of structure and composition also endows FC with an enhanced photothermal response in the near-infrared (NIR) region. Moreover, cell experiments indicate that the constructed nanocarrier can be easily transferred into cells by endocytosis, showing low toxicity and exhibiting excellent cancer therapy effects resulting from a good combination of chemotherapy and photothermal therapy. Considering the low cost, high synthesis efficiency and outstanding properties of FC, the newly developed nanocarrier may find widespread applications in biomedicine and other related fields.
尽管近年来由于其独特的化学和物理性质，富勒烯、碳纳米管和石墨烯等碳材料在生物医学领域的应用得到了深入研究，但氟化碳纤维（FC）在生物医学领域的探索却很少，主要是因为其尺寸大、针状结构和强疏水性。在本研究中，我们首次开发了一种具有良好生物相容性、高载药量和增强光热性能的新型基于FC的纳米载体。首先采用一种简单可行的策略将商业FC转化为在水和培养基中均具有良好溶解性的纳米尺寸颗粒。表面润湿性的变化使我们能够通过π-π堆积相互作用将阿霉素（DOX）负载到FC上。结构和组成的成功调控还赋予FC在近红外（NIR）区域增强的光热响应。此外，细胞实验表明，构建的纳米载体可以通过内吞作用轻松转移到细胞中，显示出低毒性，并由于化疗和光热疗法的良好结合而表现出优异的癌症治疗效果。考虑到FC的低成本、高合成效率和优异性能，新开发的纳米载体可能在生物医学和其他相关领域得到广泛应用。
