Silk nanoparticles for combinational anti-cancer chemo and photothermal therapy

Abstract

Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases in the world but conventional cancer treatments have several side effects. Therefore, photothermal therapy is an effective alternative solution due to the localized thermal effect which makes it suitable for solid tumors. This study explores biocompatible silk fibroin nanoparticles for simultaneous delivery of Doxorubicin (DOX) and Indocyanine Green (ICG) for combinational chemo and photothermal therapy. Efficient encapsulation of ICG, induced by DOX-mediated J-aggregation, was achieved in ICG -DOX loaded silk nanoparticles (IDSNPs) (~98%), surpassing the loading capacities of only ICG-loaded nanoparticles (ISNPs) (~20%). The enhanced loading of ICG within IDSNPs might be due to the interaction of ICG and DOX with the silk nanoparticles which was confirmed using circular dichroism spectroscopy.