Extracellular vesicles based self-grown gold nanopopcorn for combinatorial chemo-photothermal therapy

Here, we generated a popcorn-like gold nanostructure exploiting extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs can first serve as the vehicle for chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin (DOX). Taking advantages of EVs, gold nanoparticles can be then self-grown surrounding the EVs, assembling into popcorn-like nanostructure. The formulated nanopopcorn, consisting of self-grown gold nanoparticles and EVs encapsulated with DOX, retained the photothermal transduction from gold nanoparticle assemblies and cytotoxicity of DOX. Under external near infrared irradiation, gold nanopopcorn can produce hyperthermia to induce tumor ablation and trigger drug release, achieving combinatorial chemo-photothermal therapy. The nanoplatform demonstrated improved cellular internalization, controlled drug release, enhanced antitumor efficacy with tumor inhibitory rate up to 98.6% and reduced side effects. Our design of popcorn-like nanostructure will contribute a novel modality for facile and green synthesis of complex metal nanostructures exploiting natural properties of EVs for combinational therapy.