Tailoring morphologies of mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticles to deliver high-loading radioiodine for anaplastic thyroid carcinoma imaging and therapy.

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC), as one of the most aggressive human malignancies, cannot be cured by iodine (I) internal radiotherapy (RT) because the tumor cells cannot effectively take up I and are resistant to radiotherapy. In this study, a facile and simple method was proposed to synthesize mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticles (MPDA) and tailor their morphologies by component-adjusting Pluronic micelle-guided polymerization. Then, MPDA were used not only as nanocarriers to radiolabel I, but also as photothermal conversion agents for photothermal therapy (PTT) to promote RT. The iodine-labeling capacity and photothermal conversion efficiency of MPDA can be enhanced by optimizing their morphologies. It was found that MPDA NPs with a cerebroid pore channel structure (CPDA) showed the highest iodine-carrying capacity and a higher photothermal conversion efficiency as a result of their maximum specific surface area and unique morphology. In subsequent experiments and , our ATC animal models showed impressive therapeutic responses to CPDA-I NPs because of the synergistic effect of PTT and RT. Additionally, CPDA-I NPs can be utilized to obtain high-quality SPETC/CT images of tumors, which can guide clinical therapy for ATC. Considering their great biosafety, these radioiodine-labeled CPDA NPs may serve as a promising tool in combined therapy and diagnosis in ATC.