Fluorinated carbon fiber as a novel nanocarrier for cancer chemo-photothermal therapy

Although biomedical applications of carbon materials such as fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphene have been intensively studied in recent years owing to their unique chemical and physical properties, fluorinated carbon fiber (FC) has been rarely explored in biomedicine, mostly because of it's large-size, needle-like structure and strong hydrophobicity. In this study, for the first time we developed a novel FC-based nano-carrier with good biocompatibility, high drug-loading capacity and enhanced photo-thermal performance. A simple and feasible strategy is first employed to transform commercial FC into nano-sized ones with good solubility in both water and culture medium. The changes in surface wettability then facilitated us to load doxorubicin (DOX) onto the FC via pi-pi stacking interactions. Successful regulation of structure and composition also endows FC with an enhanced photothermal response in the near-infrared (NIR) region. Moreover, cell experiments indicate that the constructed nanocarrier can be easily transferred into cells by endocytosis, showing low toxicity and exhibiting excellent cancer therapy effects resulting from a good combination of chemotherapy and photothermal therapy. Considering the low cost, high synthesis efficiency and outstanding properties of FC, the newly developed nanocarrier may find widespread applications in biomedicine and other related fields.