摘要
Development of simple, robust, and noninvasive therapeutic approaches to treat cancers and improve survival rates is a grand challenge in clinical biomedicine. In particular, the sizes and shape of the nanomaterials play a vital role in dictating their biodistribution and clearance pathways. It remains elusive how the size and shape of a nanomaterial affect its therapeutic efficacy in cancer diagnosis and treatments. To tackle the above problem, the effects of size and shape of Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanostructures (nanosheets and quantum dots) on the photodynamic therapy (PDT) in destroying malignant drug-resistant lung tumors and on combating the tumor hypoxia problem are investigated and compared. The photocatalytic mechanism of Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanostructures mainly involves the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as hydroxyl radical ( · OH) and singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ). Under an oxygen deprivation condition, Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanosheets still can generate OH radicals to kill cancer cells upon near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation. Overall, in vitro and in vivo experiments show that Cu 2 (OH)PO 4 nanosheets can overcome tumor hypoxia problems and effectively mediate dual modal PDT and photothermal therapeutic (PTT) effects on destruction of NCI-H23 lung tumors in mice using ultralow doses (350 mW cm −2 ) of NIR (915 nm) light.