NIR-Triggered Cu2O/Cu2-xS Heterostructure as an “All-In-One” Functional Nanoplatform for Efficient Synergistic Tumor Therapy

The fabrication of synergistic multifunctional anti-tumor nanoplatforms is challenging due to the urgent requirement to activate different therapeutic modalities. Although the multi-modal treatments can be achieved by carrying out the activation with different exogenous and endogenous stimulations in sequence, this tedious manner is not applicable to the ideal synergistic cancer treatment. Herein, a simple heterojunction of Cu₂O/Cu_2-xS modified with gambogic acid and hyaluronic acid (CCS@GA@HA) is ingeniously fabricated for the synergistic cancer treatment combining photothermal therapy (PTT), photocatalytic therapy (PCT), chemodynamic therapy (CDT) and potential ferroptosis just activated by the single near infrared (NIR) light irradiation. Cu₂O/Cu_2-xS heterostructure (CCS) with promoted separation and transfer efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers exhibits excellent photocatalytic performance. The intervention of gambogic acid (GA) downregulates the overexpression of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90), which make it possible to execute the mild PTT. And the CDT performance is efficiently improved by the heat generated from PTT. Specifically, CCS appears to accelerate the accumulation of lipid peroxides (LPO) and inactivate glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) that directly induce ferroptosis. In brief, CCS@GA@HA exhibits prominent NIR-triggered synergistic effect involving PCT, mild PTT, enhanced CDT and ferroptosis for an effective multi-modal tumor treatment.