Short duration cancer treatment: inspired by a fast bio-resorbable smart nano-fiber device containing NIR lethal polydopamine nanospheres for effective chemo–photothermal cancer therapy

Background: The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a combination of Photothermal therapy (PTT) and chemotherapy in a single nano-fiber platform containing lethal polydopamine nano-pheres (PD NPs) for annihilation of CT 26 cancer cells. Method: Polydioxanone (PDO) nano-fiber containing PD and bortezomib (BTZ) was fabricated via electrospinning method. The content of BTZ and PD after optimization was 7% and 2.5% respectively with respect to PDO weight. PD NPs have absorption band in near-infrared (NIR) with resultant rapid heating capable of inducing cancer cell death. The samples was divided into three groups – PDO, PDO+PD, and PDO+PD-BTZ for analysis. Results: In combined treatment, PDO nano-fiber alone could not inhibit cancer cell growth as it neither contain PD or BTZ. However, PDO+PD fiber showed a cell viability of approximately 20% after 72 hr of treatment indicating minimal killing via hyperthermia. In the case of PDO composite fiber containing BTZ, the effect of NIR irradiation reduced the viability of cancer cells down to around 5% after 72 h showing the efficiency of combination therapy on cancer cells elimination. However, due to higher photothermal conversion that may negatively affect normal cells above 46°C, we have employed 1 s “OFF” and 2 s “ON” after initial 9 s continuous irradiation to maintain the temperature between 42 and 46°C over 3 mins of treatment using 2 W/cm2; 808 nm laser which resulted to similar cell death. Conclusion: In this study, combination of PTT and chemotherapy treatment on CT 26 colon cancer cells within 3 min resulted in effective cell death in contrast to single treatment of either PTT and chemotherapy alone. Our results suggest that this nano-fiber device with efficient heating and remote control drug delivery system can be useful and convenient in the future clinical application for localized cancer therapy.