Targeted Graphene Oxide for Integrated Tumor Diagnosis and Treatment

Abstract

Integrin αvβ3 (V3) is a typical tumor marker, which provides a basis for the diagnosis of tumor types and also provides potential target for tumor treatment. The chemical nature of V3 is a transmembrane glycoprotein, which is highly expressed on the surface of a variety of tumor cells, such as human malignant glioma (U87-MG). Therefore, the study used U87-MG cells as the treatment model, using V3 monoclonal antibody (V3MA) as the most targeted ligand, coupled with a novel nano-graphene oxide (NGO) as a photothermal agent. A new type of nanoprobe (NGO-mAb-FITC) was constructed for targeted imaging and photothermal therapy of tumor. The nanoprobe has the active targeting effect of recognizing U87-MG of V3-positive cells, but cannot recognize human breast cancer cells (McF-7) with negative expression of V3. By covalently modifying target ligands with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC), nanoprobes (NGO-mAb-FITC) can achieve targeted imaging effects on tumor cells. Meanwhile, the photothermal transformation of GO under 805 nm near-infrared (NIR) light enabled tumor cells to specifically absorb NGO-mAb-FITC nanoprobe and realize hyperthermia, thus inducing thermal damage and cell apoptosis. The results showed that NGO-mAb-FITC could effectively identify V3-positive tumor cells and provide evidence for tumor diagnosis. The high photothermal conversion ability of GO provides a new approach for tumor therapy, and GO is expected to be a potential new targeted photothermal conversion probe for tumor imaging diagnosis and photothermal therapy.