Binary System for MicroRNA-Targeted Imaging in Single Cells and Photothermal Cancer Therapy

Abnormal expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) is often associated with tumorigenesis, metastasis, and progression. Among them, miRNA-21 is found to be overexpressed in most of the cancer cells. Here, a binary system is designed for miRNA-21 targeted imaging and photothermal treatment in single cells. The binary system is composed by a pair of probes (probe-1 and probe-2), which are encapsulated in liposomes for cell delivery. Both of the two probes adopt gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as the core material, and the AuNPs are functionalized with Cy5-marked molecular beacon (MB-1/MB-2 for probe-1/probe-2, respectively). The loop part of MBs are designed to be complementary with miRNA-21. Therefore, after the binary system enters into the cytoplasm, MBs can be opened upon miRNA-21 triggered hybridization, which turns "on" the fluorescence of Cy5 for the localization of miRNA-21. At the same time, a cross-linking between the probes occurs since the far ends of MB-1 and MB-2 are designed to be complementary with each other. The miRNA-induced aggregation shifts the absorption of AuNPs to near-infrared, which can be observed under dark-field microscopy (DFM) and used for the following photothermal therapy. Under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation, MCF-7 breast cancer cells are successfully killed. The proposed system can be further applied in tumor-bearing mice and shows significant therapeutic effect. This work provides a new tool for intracellular miRNA analysis and targeted treatment against cancer.