Fabrication of Upconverting Hybrid Nanoparticles for Near-Infrared Light Triggered Drug Release

[摘要] Low tissue penetration and harmful effects of (ultraviolet) UV or visible light onnormal tissue limit exploiting nanocarriers for the application of light-controlled drugrelease. Two strategies may solve the problem: one is to improve the sensitivity of thenanocarriers to light to decrease the radiation time; the other one is using morefriendly light as the trigger. In this work, we fabricated a core-shell hybrid nanoparticlewith an upconverting nanoparticle (UCNP) as the core and thermo- andlight-responsive block copolymers as the shell to combine the two strategies together. The results indicated that the sensitivity of the block copolymer to light could be enhancedby decreasing the photolabile moieties in the polymer, and the UCNP could transfernear-infrared (NIR) light, which is more friendly to tissue and cell, to UV light totrigger the phase conversion of the block polymersin situ. Using Nile Red (NR) as themodel drug, the hybrid nanoparticles were further proved to be able to act as carrierswith the character of NIR triggered drug release.

[学科分类] 材料工程