Niobium Carbide Loaded by Macrophage for Targeted Phototherapy Ablation of Breast Cancer
ABSTRACTAltough nanomaterial-mediated phototherapy has been extensively studied, the major antitumor success is limited to treating subcutaneous tumor on nude, lacking of clinically-relevant big animal study. Therefore, it is urgent to make further investigation on the typical big model, which is more closely related to the human body. In this work, niobium carbide (NbC) was selected as photoactive substance in virtue of its outstanding near infrared (NIR) absorption properties and resultantly NIR-triggered hyperthemia and reactive oxygen species generation for the synergetic photothermal and photodynamic effect. Moreover, macrophage was used as bio-carrier for the targeted delivery of NbC and the phagocytosis of macrophages was proved to be able to retain the photothermal/photodynamic effect of NbC. Resultantly, macrophage loaded NbC could realize complete removal of solid tumor on both of nude mice and big animal of rabbits. Meanwhile, two-dimensional ultrasound, shave wave elastography (SWE) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) have been applied for monitoring the physiological evolutions of in vivo tumor post treatment, which clearly disclosed the photoablation process of tumor and provided a new way for the surveillance of tumor on the big animal study. Hence, large animal model study in this work presented higher clinical significance than the previous studies.SignificanceFindings show that niobium carbide carried by macrophages can be used for targeted phototherapy. At the same time, we applied the rabbit tumor model which is closer to the human body microenvironment.