Polypyrrole nanoparticles loaded with doxorubicin for pH-responsive combinational photothermal-chemotherapy of cancer cells

The combined treatment method integrated photothermal therapy (PTT) with chemotherapy is extremely promising owing to the synergistic therapeutic effect as compared to single PTT or chemotherapy. To facilitate more novel and facile photothermal-chemotherapy drugs as well as promote controllable combination therapy, we have developed a mild and facile method to fabricate polymer polypyrrole (PPy)-doxorubicin (DOX) nanoparticles (NPs) as pH-responsive drug nanocarriers for synergistic photothermal-chemotherapy. In the nanoplatform, poly-L-lysine (PLL)-modified PPy serves as the photothermal material, and (DOX) molecules are adopted as the chemotherapy agent. Based on the cross-linking reaction of glutaraldehyde, DOX molecules are flexibly and efficiently assembled on the surface of PLL-modified PPy NPs. The obtained PPy-DOX NPs possess high photothermal effect, superior loading capacity of DOX, and controlled drug release behavior. The combination photothermal-chemotherapy based on PPy-DOX NPs has significantly enhanced the antitumor therapy effect. In general, the designed PPy-DOX NPs may be a potential drug delivery nanoplatform for cancer combination therapy.