Mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticles coated with red blood cell membrane for synergistic chemo-photothermal therapy

Traditionally, the most common way to cure cancer is chemotherapy. Unfortunately, the cytotoxic drug that is commonly used in chemotherapy does not have selectivity towards cancer cell and highly proliferating normal cells, which would result in side effects such as emesis and hearing loss. Nanoparticles delivery system, on the other hand, is attracting interest from its ability of targeted drug delivery, tumor in situ imaging, heat production under light stimulation, carrying one or more contrast agents, etc. In this paper, I designed a mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticle (MPDA) coated with erythrocyte membrane, and loaded with tirapazamine. Particularly, the red blood cell membrane (RBC membrane) can make MPDA achieve long circulation in the human body by camouflaging the MPDA and the macrophage would not uptake MPDA. Besides, the RBC membrane can insert AS1411 to target the tumor more successfully and more accurately. In addition, MPDA and RBC membrane have biodegradability and they would not harm human tissue after the drug delivery is complete. This nanoparticle drug delivery system is formulated by MPDA as the triapazamine carrier and coated by RBC membrane with the insert of AS1411. Thus, it is expected that the combined therapy in the nanoparticle drug delivery system can realize the combined treatment of phototherapy and chemotherapy.