In-situ self-assembly of sandwich-like Ti3C2 MXene/gold nanorods nanosheets for synergistically enhanced near-infrared responsive drug delivery

Abstract As a novel two-dimensional material, Ti3C2 MXenes has attracted lots of attention in biomedical filed for its large surface area and excellent near-infrared (NIR) responsiveness. In this paper, an in-situ growth and self-assembly approach was employed to combine gold nanorods (GNRs) with Ti3C2 nanosheets to prepare intelligent sandwich-like Ti3C2@GNRs/PDA/Ti3C2 nanohybrids. Compared with Ti3C2 nanosheets, in-situ growth Ti3C2@GNRs possessed excellent photothermal conversion efficiency (45.89%), caused by the distinguished photothermal synergy between GNRs and Ti3C2 nanosheets. Moreover, the high specific surface area of Ti3C2 MXene and outstanding adhesion performance of PDA endowed Ti3C2@GNRs/PDA/Ti3C2 nanohybrids with superior drug loading ability for doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) (95.88%). Besides, Ti3C2@GNRs/PDA/Ti3C2 nanohybrids displayed distinct pH/NIR responsive drug release properties upon NIR irradiation owing to the strong π-π stacking interaction between Ti3C2@GNRs/PDA/Ti3C2 and DOX, along with the excellent NIR-responsiveness of Ti3C2@GNRs/PDA/Ti3C2. This paper offers a practicable method to prepare Ti3C2 MXene-based nanoplatform with synergistically enhanced NIR drug release behavior, brilliant biocompatibility and high drug loading efficiency, which is expected to be applied in remote cancer therapy.