High-Performance Dual Combination Therapy for Cancer Treatment with Hybrid Membrane-Camouflaged Mesoporous Silica Gold Nanorods.

Conventional chemotherapy usually induces significant side effects due to its inability to discriminate between cancer and normal cells. Moreover, the efficacy of cancer elimination is still unsatisfied. Here, we fabricated a nanocomposite enabling high-performance dual combination therapy (chemo/photothermal therapy). This style of novel nanocomposites was constructed with doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded mesoporous silica gold (MSG) nanorods, which were further camouflaged with hybrid membranes derived from HeLa cells and red blood cells (HRMSGD). The hybrid membrane-camouflaged structure showed enhanced circulation lifetime and cell line-specific delivery of chemotherapeutics both in vitro and in vivo. The dual combination therapy by HRMSGD showed an unattainable therapeutic effect, compared with a single treatment, and inhibited tumor growth significantly. Furthermore, the nanoplatforms were photoacoustic-responsive, which showed real-time and noninvasive tracking capability. The present study established nanoplatforms with hybrid cell membrane-camouflaged multifunctional gold nanorods, which realized the combination of homotypic targeting, noninvasive tracking, chemotherapy, and photothermal therapy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to use a natural membrane to camouflage mesoporous silica-modified gold nanorods, which opened a new avenue for cancer treatment.