Black Silver Nanocubes@Amino Acid-Encoded Highly Branched Gold Shells with Efficient Photothermal Conversion for Tumor Therapy

Cancers are among the leading causes of death currently. Conventional radiotherapy and chemotherapy are of limited use in the treatment of some tumors due to their high toxicity and drug resistance. Plasma photothermal therapy has attracted extensive attention for the treatment of tumors due to photothermal properties of plasmonic nanoparticles, such as gold (Au) nanoparticles, to achieve local hyperthermia with low toxicity and high efficiency. Herein, we report a kind of special black noble-metal core-shell nanostructure, with silver (Ag) nanocubes as the core and amino acid-encoded highly branched Au nanorods as the shells (L-CAggAu and D-CAg@Au). The proposed growth of L-CAg@Au and D-CAg@Au nanocomposites was an amino acid-encoded Stranski-Krastanov mode. Both L-CAgpz Au and D-CAg@ Au exhibited outstanding photothermal conversion compared to the core-shell structure without amino acids (Ag@Au). D-CAggAu possessed the best photothermal conversion efficiency (87.28%) among the composite nanoparticles. The antitumor therapeutic efficacy of as-prepared samples was evaluated in vitro and in vivo, and apoptosis analysis was done via flow cytometry. This work reports novel insights for the preparation of special bimetallic branched structures and broadens the application of metal nanomaterials in photothermal tumor therapy.

Automated summary

Cancers are a leading cause of death and conventional treatments have limitations. Plasma photothermal therapy, utilizing plasmonic nanoparticles, has gained attention for its low toxicity and high efficiency. This study presents a unique black noble-metal core-shell nanostructure, with silver nanocubes as the core and amino acid-encoded highly branched gold nanorods as the shells. These nanocomposites exhibited excellent photothermal conversion, particularly D-CAggAu with the highest efficiency of 87.28%. The therapeutic efficacy was evaluated in vitro and in vivo, showing potential for photothermal tumor therapy.