Combined chemo/photothermal therapy based on mesoporous silica-Au core-shell nanoparticles for hepatocellular carcinoma treatment

Chemotherapy has been widely used for treatment to malignant cancer, such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Chemotherapeutic effect was not often efficient to achieve totally tumor ablation due to the poor cellular uptake and drug resistance. To address these problems, a novel nanoplatform was constructed based on nontoxic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) for a combined chemo/photothermal therapy to enhance tumor cell accumulation and promote toxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs. Prepared MSNs were consisted of Au nanoshell for photothermal conversion and a first-line anti-HCC drug-sorafenib (SO) for chemotherapy. The SO-Au-MSNs could help SO accumulate more in hepatic cancer cells. Under near infrared irradiation, SO-Au-MSNs exerted a high cell inhibition rate which could be attributed to the enhanced toxicity of SO under hyperthermia and synergistic chemo/photothermal therapy. SO-Au-MSNs showed a good compatibility as well as efficient cell cytotoxicity. Overall, SO-Au-MSNs would be a promising candidate for further enhancing the antitumor effect on HCC.