title: Thermally Triggered in Situ Assembly of Gold Nanoparticles for Cancer Multimodal Imaging and Photothermal Therapy.
abstract: The assembly of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to AuNP assemblies is of interest for cancer therapy and imaging. Herein we introduce a new and general paradigm, thermally triggered AuNP assembly, for the development of novel intelligent platforms for cancer photothermal therapy (PTT) and multimodal imaging. Site-specific conjugation of a thermally sensitive elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) to AuNPs yields thermally sensitive ELP-AuNPs. Interestingly, ELP-AuNPs can in situ form AuNP assemblies composed of short necklace-like gold nanostructures at elevated temperatures and thus show strong near-infrared light absorption and high photothermal effect. These thermally responsive properties of ELP-AuNPs enable simultaneous photothermal/photoacoustic/X-ray computed tomographic imaging and PTT of melanoma after single intratumoral injection of ELP-AuNPs. The thermally triggered assembly of a variety of nanoparticles with optical, electronic, and magnetic properties into nanoparticle assemblies may open new ways for the establishment of intelligent platforms for various applications in biomedicine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Mengmeng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Hanjun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China , Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Dongliang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Beijing Institute of Basic Medical Sciences , Beijing 100850, China.
authors.forename: Ximin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Yen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Weiping
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2916-3044
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D006046:Gold; D006801:Humans; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D009369:Neoplasms; D010789:Phototherapy
chemical_list: D006046:Gold
keywords: cancer therapy; elastin-like polypeptide; gold nanoparticle; hyperthermia; photothermal therapy