Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Theranostic nanoplatform based on polypyrrole nanoparticles for photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy

  • Research Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Nanoparticle Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Development of effective theranostic nanoplatforms against malignant tumor is still a challenge. With desirable near-infrared (NIR) light-responsive properties, polypyrrole nanoparticles (PPy NPs) are one of the promising theranostic candidates for cancer photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. Here, PPy NPs with distinct sizes were prepared using a facile aqueous dispersion polymerization method. The formed PPy NPs are uniform in size with narrow size distribution. Characterization data show that PPy NPs with a diameter around 50 nm (P50) display stronger absorption in the NIR range compared to 40 and 60 nm PPy NPs, which further influences their photo-responsive properties. Due to their higher NIR absorption, P50 NPs have better photoacoustic imaging property and photothermal conversion ability than the other two kinds of PPy NPs. The photothermal stability of P50 NPs was proved to be excellent. The CCK-8 assays show that PPy NPs have obvious acute cytotoxicity within 6 h and desirable cytocompatibility for longer incubation time (12 and 24 h). After 6-h incubation, P50 NPs could be internalized by HeLa cells. Their photothermal tumor ablation effect was demonstrated under 808-nm laser irradiation. These findings may provide in-depth understanding of the PPy-based multifunctional nanomaterials for the development of theranostic systems against cancer.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahmad R, Fu J, He N, Li S (2016) Advanced gold nanomaterials for photothermal therapy of cancer. J Nanosci Nanotechno 16(1):67–80

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cai H, Li K, Shen M, Wen S, Luo Y, Peng C, Zhang G, Shi X (2012) Facile assembly of Fe3O4@Au nanocomposite particles for dual mode magnetic resonance and computed tomography imaging applications. J Mater Chem 22(30):15110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen M, Fang X, Tang S, Zheng N (2012) Polypyrrole nanoparticles for high-performance in vivo near-infrared photothermal cancer therapy. Chem Commun 48(71):8934–8936

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen D, Wang C, Nie X, Li S, Li R, Guan M, Liu Z, Chen C, Wang C, Shu C, Wan L (2014a) Photoacoustic imaging guided near-infrared photothermal therapy using highly water-dispersible single-walled carbon nanohorns as theranostic agents. Adv Funct Mater 24(42):6621–6628

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen M, Tang S, Guo Z, Wang X, Mo S, Huang X, Liu G, Zheng N (2014b) Core-shell Pd@Au nanoplates as theranostic agents for in-vivo photoacoustic imaging, CT imaging, and photothermal therapy. Adv Mater 26(48):8210–8216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheng L, Liu J, Gu X, Gong H, Shi X, Liu T, Wang C, Wang X, Liu G, Xing H, Bu W, Sun B, Liu Z (2014) PEGylated WS2 nanosheets as a multifunctional theranostic agent for in vivo dual-modal CT/photoacoustic imaging guided photothermal therapy. Adv Mater 26(12):1886–1893

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deng H, Dai F, Ma G, Zhang X (2015) Theranostic gold nanomicelles made from biocompatible comb-like polymers for thermochemotherapy and multifunctional imaging with rapid clearance. Adv Mater 27(24):3645–3653

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dong Z, Gong H, Gao M, Zhu W, Sun X, Feng L, Fu T, Li Y, Liu Z (2016) Polydopamine nanoparticles as a versatile molecular loading platform to enable imaging-guided cancer combination therapy. Theranostics 6(7):1031–1042

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fan Q, Cheng K, Yang Z, Zhang R, Yang M, Hu X, Ma X, Bu L, Lu X, Xiong X, Huang W, Zhao H, Cheng Z (2015) Perylene-diimide-based nanoparticles as highly efficient photoacoustic agents for deep brain tumor imaging in living mice. Adv Mater 27(5):843–847

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guha S, Shaw GK, Mitcham TM, Bouchard RR, Smith BD (2016) Croconaine rotaxane for acid activated photothermal heating and ratiometric photoacoustic imaging of acidic pH. Chem Commun 52(1):120–123

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hong J-Y, Yoon H, Jang J (2010) Kinetic study of the formation of polypyrrole nanoparticles in water-soluble polymer/metal cation systems: a light-scattering analysis. Small 6(5):679–686

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu D, Liu C, Song L, Cui H, Gao G, Liu P, Sheng Z, Cai L (2016a) Indocyanine green-loaded polydopamine-iron ions coordination nanoparticles for photoacoustic/magnetic resonance dual-modal imaging-guided cancer photothermal therapy. Nano 8(39):17150–17158

    Google Scholar 

  • Hu D, Zhang J, Gao G, Sheng Z, Cui H, Cai L (2016b) Indocyanine green-loaded polydopamine-reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites with amplifying photoacoustic and photothermal effects for cancer theranostics. Theranostics 6(7):1043–1052

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang Y, He S, Cao W, Cai K, Liang XJ (2012) Biomedical nanomaterials for imaging-guided cancer therapy. Nano 4(20):6135–6149

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang P, Lin J, Li W, Rong P, Wang Z, Wang S, Wang X, Sun X, Aronova M, Niu G (2013) Biodegradable gold nanovesicles with an ultrastrong plasmonic coupling effect for photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. Angew Chem Int Edit 125(52):14208–14214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jin Y, Li Y, Ma X, Zha Z, Shi L, Tian J, Dai Z (2014) Encapsulating tantalum oxide into polypyrrole nanoparticles for X-ray CT/photoacoustic bimodal imaging-guided photothermal ablation of cancer. Biomaterials 35(22):5795–5804

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li Y, Jiang C, Zhang D, Wang Y, Ren X, Ai K, Chen X, Lu L (2017) Targeted polydopamine nanoparticles enable photoacoustic imaging guided chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy of tumor. Acta Biomater 47:124–134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liang X, Li Y, Li X, Jing L, Deng Z, Yue X, Li C, Dai Z (2015) PEGylated polypyrrole nanoparticles conjugating gadolinium chelates for dual-modal MRI/photoacoustic imaging guided photothermal therapy of cancer. Adv Funct Mater 25(9):1451–1462

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liang X, Fang L, Li X, Zhang X, Wang F (2017) Activatable near infrared dye conjugated hyaluronic acid based nanoparticles as a targeted theranostic agent for enhanced fluorescence/CT/photoacoustic imaging guided photothermal therapy. Biomaterials 132:72–84

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liao J, Qi T, Chu B, Peng J, Luo F, Qian Z (2014) Multifunctional nanostructured materials for multimodal cancer imaging and therapy. J Nanosci Nanotechno 14(1):175–189

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu H, Wang H, Xu Y, Shen M, Zhao J, Zhang G, Shi X (2014) Synthesis of PEGylated low generation dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles for CT imaging applications. Nano 6:4521–4526

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu F, He X, Lei Z, Liu L, Zhang J, You H, Zhang H, Wang Z (2015) Facile preparation of doxorubicin-loaded upconversion@polydopamine nanoplatforms for simultaneous in vivo multimodality imaging and chemophotothermal synergistic therapy. Adv Healthcare Mater 4(4):559–568

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Opoku-Damoah Y, Wang R, Zhou J, Ding Y (2016) Versatile nanosystem-based cancer theranostics: design inspiration and predetermined routing. Theranostics 6(7):986–1003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Song KH, Stein EW, Margenthaler JA, Wang LV (2008) Noninvasive photoacoustic identification of sentinel lymph nodes containing methylene blue in vivo in a rat model. J Biomed Opt 13(5):054033

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Song G, Shen J, Jiang F, Hu R, Li W, An L, Zou R, Chen Z, Qin Z, Hu J (2014) Hydrophilic molybdenum oxide nanomaterials with controlled morphology and strong plasmonic absorption for photothermal ablation of cancer cells. ACS Appl Mater Inter 6(6):3915–3922

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Song X, Chen Q, Liu Z (2015) Recent advances in the development of organic photothermal nano-agents. Nano Res 8(2):340–354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang X, Pang Y, Ku G, Xie X, Stoica G, Wang LV (2003) Noninvasive laser-induced photoacoustic tomography for structural and functional in vivo imaging of the brain. Nat Biotechnol 21(7):803–806

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang K, Gao Z, Gao G, Wo Y, Wang Y, Shen G, Cui D (2013) Systematic safety evaluation on photoluminescent carbon dots. Nanoscale Res Lett 8(1):122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang L, Lin X, Wang J, Hu Z, Ji Y, Hou S, Zhao Y, Wu X, Chen C (2014a) Novel insights into combating cancer chemotherapy resistance using a plasmonic nanocarrier: enhancing drug sensitiveness and accumulation simultaneously with localized mild photothermal stimulus of femtosecond pulsed laser. Adv Funct Mater 24(27):4229–4239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang Q, Wang J, Lv G, Wang F, Zhou X, Hu J, Wang Q (2014b) Facile synthesis of hydrophilic polypyrrole nanoparticles for photothermal cancer therapy. J Mater Sci 49(9):3484–3490

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang L, Sun Q, Wang X, Wen T, Yin J, Wang P, Bai R, Zhang X, Zhang L, Lu A, Chen C (2015) Using hollow carbon nanospheres as a light-induced free radical generator to overcome chemotherapy resistance. J Am Chem Soc 137(5):1947–1955

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang S, Zhao J, Yang H, Wu C, Hu F, Chang H, Li G, Ma D, Zou D, Huang M (2017) Bottom-up synthesis of WS2 nanosheets with synchronous surface modification for imaging guided tumor regression. Acta Biomater 58:442–454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wen S, Li K, Cai H, Chen Q, Shen M, Huang Y, Peng C, Hou W, Zhu M, Zhang G, Shi X (2013) Multifunctional dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles for dual mode CT/MR imaging applications. Biomaterials 34(5):1570–1580

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang K, Feng L, Shi X, Liu Z (2013) Nano-graphene in biomedicine: theranostic applications. Chem Soc Rev 42(2):530–547

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang Z, Ren J, Ye Z, Zhu W, Xiao L, Zhang L, He Q, Xu Z, Xu H (2017) Bio-inspired synthesis of PEGylated polypyrrole@polydopamine nanocomposites as theranostic agents for T1-weighted MR imaging guided photothermal therapy. J Mater Chem B 5(5):1108–1116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zha Z, Deng Z, Li Y, Li C, Wang J, Wang S, Qu E, Dai Z (2013a) Biocompatible polypyrrole nanoparticles as a novel organic photoacoustic contrast agent for deep tissue imaging. Nano 5(10):4462–4467

    Google Scholar 

  • Zha Z, Yue X, Ren Q, Dai Z (2013b) Uniform polypyrrole nanoparticles with high photothermal conversion efficiency for photothermal ablation of cancer cells. Adv Mater 25(5):777–782

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zha Z, Zhang S, Deng Z, Li Y, Li C, Dai Z (2013c) Enzyme-responsive copper sulphide nanoparticles for combined photoacoustic imaging, tumor-selective chemotherapy and photothermal therapy. Chem Commun 49(33):3455–3457

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang L, Su H, Cai J, Cheng D, Ma Y, Zhang J, Zhou C, Liu S, Shi H, Zhang Y, Zhang C (2016) A multifunctional platform for tumor angiogenesis-targeted chemo-thermal therapy using polydopamine-coated gold nanorods. ACS Nano 10(11):10404–10417

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the start-up grant from Southwest University (SWU116027, SWU115059), the Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities from Southwest University (XDJK2016C153), the Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology (cstc2017jcyjAX0066), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81401503, 31671037, 51703184). Y.C. gratefully acknowledges the funding support of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded projects (2015T80963, 2016M590869) and Chongqing Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (Xm2015089).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Clean Energy and Advanced Materials, Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Hui Liu, Wenchao Li & Yuejun Kang

  2. Chongqing Engineering Research Center for Micro-Nano Biomedical Materials and Devices, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Hui Liu, Wenchao Li & Yuejun Kang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Hui Liu

  4. Chongqing Key Laboratory of Ultrasound Molecular Imaging, Institute of Ultrasound Imaging, Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400010, China

    Yang Cao & Yuan Guo

Authors
  1. Hui Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Wenchao Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yang Cao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Yuan Guo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yuejun Kang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hui Liu or Yuejun Kang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Liu, H., Li, W., Cao, Y. et al. Theranostic nanoplatform based on polypyrrole nanoparticles for photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. J Nanopart Res 20, 57 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-018-4157-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-018-4157-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation