Electrospray Self-Healing Porous Polymer Microspheres for Multimode Imaging and Combined Photothermal/Chemodynamic Therapy of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) poses a therapeutic challenge due to its anatomical complexity and the limitations of conventional treatments in achieving precise targeting and sufficient efficacy. Here, we report a multifunctional platform based on heat-triggered electrospray self-healing porous poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres encapsulating indocyanine green (ICG), sequentially coated with a tannic acid-Fe3+ (TAF) metal-phenolic network and fibronectin (FN) for targeted photothermal/chemodynamic combination therapy. The resulting functional microspheres (PI-TAF@FN) exhibit an average size of 1.9 μm, excellent colloidal stability, heat-induced self-healing performance, and a high photothermal conversion efficiency of 51.4%. These microspheres specifically target NPC cells via FN-mediated integrin recognition, enabling ICG/TAF-mediated photothermal therapy under 808-nm laser irradiation and TAF-mediated chemodynamic therapy, leading to enhanced cancer cell apoptosis in vitro. In a mouse NPC model, the combined photothermo-chemodynamic therapy achieved effective tumor treatment with minimal systemic toxicity. Furthermore, the dual TAF and ICG components allow multimode FN-targeted T1-weighted magnetic resonance/fluorescence/thermal imaging for precision NPC management. This electrospray self-healing porous microsphere platform offers a unique theranostic strategy that can integrate diverse therapeutic and diagnostic components for precision oncology.