Tailor-made charge-conversional nanocomposite for pH-responsive drug delivery and cell imaging

Imaging labels, therapeutic drugs, as well as many other agents can all be integrated into one nanoplatform to allow for molecular imaging and therapy. With this in mind, herein we report the first example of a tailor-made charge-conversional nanocomposite composed of mesoporous γ-AlO(OH) and upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) via a simple and versatile method, and the obtained nanocomposite could be performed as a drug delivery carrier and applied for cell imaging. The nanocomposite (UCNPs-Al) was found to be able to efficiently transport DOX, a typical chemotherapeutic anticancer drug, into the cancer cell and release DOX from UCNPs-Al triggering by the mildly acidic environment. In vitro cell cytotoxicity assay verified that DOX-loaded nanocomposites (UCNPs-Al-DOX) exhibited greater cytotoxicity with respect to free DOX at the same concentrations, because of the increase in cell uptake of anti-cancer drug delivery vehicles mediated by the charge-conversional property. Moreover, the UCL emission from UCNPs and the red fluorescence of DOX allow the nanocomposite to track and monitor the drug delivery system simultaneously. These findings have opened up new insights into designing and producing the highly versatile multifunctional nanoparticles for simultaneous imaging and therapeutic applications.