Anionic Solid Solution MXene for Low-Dosage NIR-II Tumor Photothermal Therapy

Due to the deep biological penetrability and therapeutic depth, the photothermal therapy over second near-infrared region (NIR-II) is booming against deep-seated tumors. Intensive endeavors are committed to looking for suitable photothermal agents (PTAs), but the progress seems not so satisfied toward the choice of PTA dosage. Herein, a comprehensive parameter, incident photon-to-thermal conversion coefficient (IPTCE), is used to evaluate the overall conversion of PTAs at different dosage, which will benefit for determining the optimized dosage of PTAs in pursuit of complete healing together with reduced long-term damages of nanodrugs. To prove the possibility, a series of anionic solid solution MXenes are chosen as hosts due to their versatile chemical compositions and correspondingly tunable light response. By deconvoluting fundamental structure-composition-property relationships, anionic regulation with extra electron injection leads to tunable free carrier densities and enhanced NIR-II harvesting. Ti3C1.23N0.77 with high-level nitrogen exhibits extraordinary extinction coefficient (43.5 L g-1 cm-1) than other MXenes. The parameter of IPTCE can guide the choice of PTA concentration for complete photothermal healing in vitro and vivo. This proof-of-principle demonstration highlights synthetically tailoring of the light harvesting over NIR-II biowindow for a given host material by anionic regulation and further optimizes tumor photothermal therapy at low dose. Anionic modulation may open a distinct avenue to tailor light harvesting over the second near-infrared region (NIR-II) biological window for a given host material and further optimizes low-dose tumor photothermal therapy through comprehensive evaluation of incident photon-to-thermal conversion coefficient. This proof-of-principle demonstration promises to discover more efficient NIR-II photothermal agents and understand the relationship between atomic composition and clinical phototherapy.image

Automated summary

This study evaluates the overall conversion of photothermal agents (PTAs) at different dosages using the incident photon-to-thermal conversion coefficient (IPTCE) to guide the selection of suitable PTA concentration for complete photothermal healing. Anionic regulation is used to optimize the light harvesting over the second near-infrared region (NIR-II) and achieve low-dose tumor photothermal therapy.