DNA-Functionalized Liposomes In Vivo Fusion for NIR-II/MRI Guided Pretargeted Ferroptosis Therapy of Metastatic Breast Cancer

In clinic, metastasis is still the main reason for death for cancer patients. Therefore, it is necessary to track cancer metastases accurately, kill cancer cells effectively, and then improve the prognosis of patients with advanced cancer. Therefore, we designed a liposome-based pretargeted system modified with single-stranded DNA and targeting peptide injected in sequence and then assembled in vivo for multimodality imaging-guided pretargeted synergistic therapy of metastatic breast cancer. The pretargeted system is composed of the first liposome, loaded with near-infrared fluorescence imaging (NIR-II) probe downconversion nanoprobes (DCNP) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent SPIO (L1/C-Lipo/DS), for primary/metastatic tumor MRI/NIR-II dual-modal imaging, and the second liposome, loaded with glucose oxidase (GOx) and doxorubicin (DOX) (L2/C-Lipo/GD), as the therapeutic component. The SPIO in L1/C-Lipo/DS accumulated in the tumor tissue will provide a necessary iron ion for the therapeutic liposome (L2/C-Lipo/GD) to exert the pretargeted ferroptosis therapy to cancer cells. We demonstrate that the DNA-mediated pretargeting strategy can realize the multimodality imaging-guided synergistically enhanced antitumor effect between the two liposomes. This pretargeted and synergistic in vivo assembly nanomedicine strategy for diagnosis and treatment holds clinical translation potential for cancer management.

Automated summary

In this study, a liposome-based pretargeted system was designed for multimodality imaging-guided pretargeted synergistic therapy of metastatic breast cancer. The system utilizes DNA and targeting peptide modifications for sequential assembly, improving the accuracy and effectiveness of the treatment.