Glucose oxidase-mediated tumor starvation therapy combined with photothermal therapy for colon cancer

Abstract

Colon cancer is one of the most common cancers with high mortality, and can easily spread and metastasize, remaining an urgent disease to be solved. Nanomaterial-associated starvation or photothermal therapy has been considered to be a promising strategy in tumor therapy. However, the therapeutic effect of a single regimen for cancer treatment still needs to be improved due to their respective limitations. Herein, a biomimetic multifunctional nanoreactor is developed by encapsulating glucose oxidase and gold nanorods (AuNRs) in an erythrocyte membrane camouflaged metal–organic framework (MOF) nanoparticle (ZGAM), which was exploited for synergistic treatment of colon cancer by combining glucose oxidase-based starvation with AuNR-based photothermal therapy (PTT). This biomimetic nanoreactor could not only exhaust endogenous glucose to suppress the growth of the tumor by the released glucose oxidase (GOx), but also enhance the effect of photothermal therapy via inhibiting the expression of heat shock protein (HSP). In vitro and in vivo investigations indicate that this biomimetic nanoreactor shows excellent therapeutic effects on tumors, resulting from the synergistic treatment of starvation therapy and PTT. Therefore, the proposed strategy may open a window to develop an intelligent therapeutic system for better therapeutic efficacy against cancer.