In vivo self-assembly induced retention of gold nanoparticles for enhanced photothermal tumor treatment

We present a simple route to fabricate peptide modified spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNPs@Pep1/Pep2) with enhanced retention performance in tumor sites for improved photothermal treatment (PTT), which was achieved through its in vivo self-assembly triggered by matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2).