Facile Preparation of a Thienoisoindigo-Based Nanoscale Covalent Organic Framework with Robust Photothermal Activity for Cancer Therapy

The covalent organic frameworks (COFs) so far are usually built with small aromatic subunits, which makes their absorption spectra mainly located in the high-energy part of the visible region. In this work, we have developed a COF with a low band gap by integrating electron-deficient thienoisoindigo and electron-rich triphenylamine. The intramolecular charge-transfer effect combining the extended length of the pi-conjugated backbone of COF endow it with broad absorption even to the second near-infrared region. After optimizing the solvent, a uniform size and colloidal stable COF is obtained. Benefiting from the coplanar structure of the monomer, this COF achieves a considerable photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) of 48.2%. With these advantages, it displays convincing cancer cell killing effect upon laser irradiation in vitro or in vivo. This work provides a simple and practical method to acquire promising a COF-based phototherapy reagent that is applied in biomedicine field.

Automated summary

In this study, a COF with a low band gap and broad absorption was developed by integrating electron-deficient and electron-rich subunits. The optimized COF showed a considerable photothermal conversion efficiency and demonstrated effective cancer cell killing upon laser irradiation, both in vitro and in vivo.