Development of photosensitizer-loaded lipid droplets for photothermal therapy based on thiophene analogs

Abstract

Introduction: Photothermal therapy (PTT) was considered as one of the most promising cancer therapies to overcome the severe side effects caused by chemotherapy. Objective: To develope four thiophene analogs to construct novel organic photothermal agents (PTAs) for many biomedical applications in cancer biosensing and photothermal therapies. Methods: The efficacy of four compounds was demonstrated by studies of photothermal properties as well as photothermal therapeutic effects. Results: Tumor ablation experiments indicated that HTN2 can effectively suppress tumors in vivo and in vitro as a novel PTA. Conclusion: PTAs that we designed and synthesized with their advantage of good biocompatibility and facile structural design could be candidates for PTT.

Keywords

• Photothermal therapy
• Thiophene analog
• D-π-A structure
• Lipid droplets
• Tumor ablation