Hyaluronic Acid Modified Tantalum Oxide Nanoparticles Conjugating Doxorubicin for Targeted Cancer Theranostics

Theranostic tantalum oxide nanoparticles (TaO_xNPs) of about 40 nm were successfully developed by conjugating functional molecules including polyethylene glycol (PEG), near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent dye, doxorubicin (DOX), and hyaluronic acid (HA) onto the surface of the nanoparticles (TaO_x@Cy7-DOX-PEG-HA NPs) for actively targeting delivery, pH-responsive drug release, and NIR fluorescence/X-ray CT bimodal imaging. The obtained nanoagent exhibits good biocompatibility, high cumulative release rate in the acidic microenvironments, long blood circulation time, and superior tumor-targeting ability. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments show that it can serve as an excellent contrast agent to simultaneously enhance fluorescence imaging and CT imaging greatly. Most importantly, such a nanoagent could enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the tumor greatly and the tumor growth inhibition was evaluated to be 87.5%. In a word, multifunctional TaO_x@Cy7-DOX-PEG-HA NPs can serve as a theranostic nanomedicine for fluorescence/X-ray CT bimodal imaging, remote-controlled therapeutics, enabling personalized detection, and treatment of cancer with high efficacy.