Organic Radiosensitizer with Aggregation-Induced Emission Characteristics for Tumor Ablation through Synergistic Apoptosis and Immunogenic Cell Death

Abstract

Inspired by the clinical application of thermotherapy to promote the efficacy of radiotherapy, this study demonstrates the multimodal diagnostic application of pure organic nanoparticles in the combined treatment of tumors through imaging and photothermal properties. The nanoparticles developed in this study demonstrated unique properties and multiple functionalities, including excellent photostability and thermostability, strong fluorescence emission in the near-infrared-II (NIR-II) region, extremely high photothermal conversion efficiency, good biocompatibility, significant radiosensitizing properties, and effective tumor site accumulation. In vitro and in vivo evaluations demonstrated that these nanoparticles are ideal candidates for synergistic photothermal radiotherapy guided by NIR-II fluorescence, NIR-I photoacoustic, and photothermal trimodal imaging. They act as radiosensitizers by alleviating the hypoxic tumor microenvironment, modulating the cell cycle, and inducing apoptosis and immunogenic cell death during radiotherapy, which may provide a potential approach for the clinical treatment of tumors.