A Hollow Amorphous Bimetal Organic Framework for Synergistic Cuproptosis/Ferroptosis/Apoptosis Anticancer Therapy via Disrupting Intracellular Redox Homeostasis and Copper/Iron Metabolisms

Cuproptosis is a very newly recognized regulated cell death modality that is distinct from known death mechanisms and shows enormous prospect in cancer treatment. However, its efficacy is copper-dependent and restricted by strictly regulated copper metabolism. Herein, a novel copper/iron hybrid hollow amorphous metal organic framework (HaMOF) is developed as an oxidative stress amplifier and copper/iron metabolic disrupter for synergistic cuproptosis/ferroptosis/apoptosis anticancer therapy. The HaMOF is fabricated from Cu2+, 3,3 '-dithiobis(propionohydrazide) and Fe3+ via an unsaturated coordination-etching integration strategy, and then doxorubicin is loaded followed by surface decoration with hyaluronan. The obtained DOX@Fe/CuTH exhibits tumor microenvironment-triggered catalytic therapeutic property, wherein it can amplify cellular oxidative stress by simultaneously boosting H2O2 production and depleting glutathione. Moreover, it can cause mitochondrial dysfunction and downregulate the expressions of copper transporter ATP7A and iron transporter FPN 1, thereby leading to metabolic disorders and high retentions of copper/iron in cytoplasm for center dot OH generation. The overloaded Cu2+ can cause lipoylated protein dihydrolipoamide S-acetyltransferase aggregation and lead to cellular cuproptosis. Collectively, both augmented oxidative stress and overloaded copper/iron induce potent ferroptosis, which synergizes with cuproptosis and DOX-mediated apoptosis to efficiently suppress tumor growth. This bimetallic hollow nanoplatform provides a new therapeutic modality paradigm to boost cuproptosis-related therapies.

Automated summary

Cuproptosis is a newly recognized regulated cell death mechanism that shows promise in cancer treatment. A novel copper/iron hybrid hollow metal organic framework (HaMOF) is developed for synergistic anticancer therapy by amplifying oxidative stress and disrupting copper/iron metabolism. The bimetallic hollow nanoplatform induces potent ferroptosis and cuproptosis, and efficiently suppresses tumor growth.