NIR-Absorbing Dye Functionalized Supramolecular Vesicles for Chemo-photothermal Synergistic Therapy

Developing multifunctional supramolecular nanoplatforms for effective tumor therapy is a challenging task. In this contribution, a NIR-absorbing perylene diimide dye G has been prepared, which not only acted as a photothermal agent, but also served as a guest. Multifunctional supramolecular vesicles were efficiently constructed by the recognition of dye G and water-soluble pillar[5]arene, which showed high-loading capacity for hydrophobic chemotherapy drug doxorubicin. What's more, the resulting drug-loaded vesicles had high stability in simulated normal physiological condition but showed rapid drug release in the acidic microenvironment. Additionally, the drug-loaded vesicles exhibited more remarkable antitumor efficacy than chemotherapy or photothermal treatment alone through chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy. Furthermore, such supramolecular drug nanocarriers could efficiently get inside the tumor cells mainly via endocytosis to obtain excellent accumulation of drug in tumor sites. Overall, this study offers an innovative tactic to fabricate smart nanocarriers for synergistic therapy of cancer.