Dual-mode glucose nanosensor as an activatable theranostic platform for cancer cell recognition and cascades-enhanced synergetic therapy

Integration of disease diagnosis and therapy is crucial in precise medicine, while the always on mode often hinders its clinical applications. Herein, inspired by cascaded catalysis, an integrated dual-mode glucose nanosensor as an activable theranostic platform is developed, which is further exploited for cancer cell recognition and enhanced synergistic therapy of lymph cancer. This nanosensor is prepared through the in-situ growth of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with the synergetic reduction of tannic acid (TA) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs), which are further decorated with glucose oxidase (GOx). A cascaded catalytic reaction is triggered by glucose, in which GOx catalyzes the oxidation of glucose into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and hydroxyl radical (center dot OH) is further produced with the catalysis of GQDs nanozyme with peroxidase-like activity, resulting in the degradation of AgNPs@GQDs-GOx with the release of Ag+. Accordingly, a turn-off colorimetric and turn-on fluorescence dual-mode glucose nanosensor is fabricated, which is readily applied for cancer cell recognition via fluorescence imaging based on the high glucose level in tumor microenvironment. Moreover, the degradation of AgNPs@GQDs-GOx in response to glucose facilitates the cascades-enhanced synergistic therapy of lymph cancer with the combination of starving-like therapy, metal ion therapy and TA-induce apoptosis. This study highlights a glucose-activated theranostic nanoplatform, which provides a great opportunity for cancerrelated biosensing, bioimaging and biomedical applications.

Automated summary

This study developed an integrated dual-mode glucose nanosensor as an activable theranostic platform for cancer cell recognition and enhanced synergistic therapy of lymph cancer. The cascade catalytic reaction triggered by glucose led to the degradation and release of Ag+ in AgNPs@GQDs-GOx, resulting in a turn-off colorimetric and turn-on fluorescence nanosensor for cancer cell recognition. The glucose-responsive degradation of AgNPs@GQDs-GOx also facilitated the cascades-enhanced synergistic therapy of lymph cancer.