Small fluorescent albumin nanoparticles for targeted photothermal therapy via albumin-Binding protein pathways

Targeted delivery of nanotheranostics to tumor site plays critical roles in the diagnosis and treatment of cancers, therefore, fabrication of targeted nanotheranostics has attracted increasing interest these years. Especially, nutrient transporters exhibit great prospect in the targeted delivery of nanotheranostics. However, small albumin nanoparticles which could even demonstrate more outstanding targeting ability via albumin-binding protein pathways than those nanoparticles modified with targeting ligands, have not been reported before. Herein, a facile strategy to construct small albumin nanoparticles of about 30 nm in one pot for better targeted fluorescence imaging and photothermal therapy of U87 tumors through albumin-binding protein pathways is presented. Compared with BSA-PhENH₂-PPy-cRGD NPs those with a larger size but less BSA molecules on the surface, more BSA-PhENH₂-PPy NPs could target the tumor site of mice in vivo, and BSA-PhENH₂-PPy NPs could also demonstrate more outstanding performance in the photothermal therapy of tumors than BSA-PhENH₂-PPy-cRGD NPs. This work provides a facile approach to construct small albumin nanoparticles in one pot for targeted fluorescence imaging and photothermal therapy, which also clearly proved the huge prospect of albumin nanoparticles for targeted tumor therapy via albumin-binding protein pathways.