Cytokine induced killer cells-assisted tumor-targeting delivery of Her-2 monoclonal antibody-conjugated gold nanostars with NIR photosentizer for enhanced therapy of cancer

Maximizing the accumulation of anticancer medicine in the tumor is the priority to settle minimally invasive cancer therapy, which raises high expected demanding on tumor-targeting property of drugs delivery system. Herein, we adopted an emerging “cell-drug” strategy in nanoplatform construction to achieve high aggregation and intratumoral distribution. We fabricated gold nanostars (GNSs) with HER-2 monoclonal antibody (trastuzumab) and near-infrared region (NIR) photosensitizer indocyanine green (ICG) into GNS@ICG-Ab, which combined photothermal therapy with photodynamic therapy (PTT/PDT) relying on enhanced photothermal conversion efficacy of GNS and 1O2 generator ICG under exposure of NIR laser. Tumor-tropism CIK cells as cargos loading GNS@ICG-Ab to migrate into tumor, make a difference on efficient accumulation and uniform distribution of GNS@ICG-Ab-CIK nanoplatform inside tumor via fluorescence, photoacoustic (PA), computed tomography (CT) imaging observations. Encouraged by the improvements in tumor targeting and retention presented in real-time imaging, we employed the novel nanoplatform into synergistic inhibiting the progression of tumors in SK-BR-3 tumor-bearing mice from PTT/PDT and immunotherapy implemented by CIK cells for activating immune response, and under the specific linkage between trastuzumab and SK-BR-3 tumor cells, our platform could exert precise strike of PDT/PTT. Taken together, integrating tri-modals imaging with tri-modals therapy endows CIK-GNS@ICG-Ab with a promising potential in cancer theranostics and solid foundation laid on the development of immune cells application in nanomedicine delivery.