IF: 13.903: Engineered Exosome-Mediated Near-Infrared-II Region V₂C Quantum Dot Delivery for Nucleus-Target Low-Temperature Photothermal Therapy

Yu Cao, Tingting Wu, Kai Zhang, Xiangdan Meng, Wenhao Dai, Dongdong Wang, Haifeng Dong,* and Xueji Zhang*，Engineered Exosome-Mediated Near-Infrared-II Region V₂C Quantum Dot Delivery for Nucleus-Target Low-Temperature Photothermal Therapy, ACS NANO 2019, 13(2), 1499-1510

ABSTRACT: The limited penetration depth of photothermal agents (PTAs) active in the NIR-I biowindow and the thermoresistance caused by heat shock protein (HSP) signifificantly limit the therapeutic effiffifficiency of photothermal therapy (PTT).

To address the problem, we introduce a strategy of low-temperature nucleus-targeted PTT in the NIR-II region achieving effffective tumor killing by combining the vanadium carbide quantum dots (V₂C QDs) PTA and an engineered exosomes (Ex) vector. The small flfluorescent V₂C QDs with good photothermal effffect in the NIR-II region were modifified with TAT peptides and packaged into Ex with RGD modifification (V₂C-TAT@Ex-RGD). The resulting nanoparticles (NPs) exhibited good biocompatibility, long circulation time, and endosomal escape ability, and they could target the cell and enter into the nucleus to realize low-temperature PTT with advanced tumor destruction effiffifficiency. The flfluorescent imaging,

photoacoustic imaging (PAI), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) capability of the NPs were also revealed. The low-temperature nucleus-targeted PTT in the NIR-II region provides more possibilities toward successful clinical application of PTT.

KEYWORDS: low-temperature PTT, nucleus target, exosomes, NIR-II biowindow