Ferroptosis, an iron-based cell-death pathway, has recently attracted great attention owing to its effectiveness in killing cancer cells. Previous investigations focused on the development of iron-based nanomaterials to induce ferroptosis in cancer cells by the up-regulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by the well-known Fenton reaction. Herein, we report a ferroptosis-inducing agent based on arginine-rich manganese silicate nanobubbles (AMSNs) that possess highly efficient glutathione (GSH) depletion ability and thereby induce ferroptosis by the inactivation of glutathione-dependent peroxidases 4 (GPX4). The AMSNs were synthesized via a one-pot reaction with arginine (Arg) as the surface ligand for tumor homing. Subsequently, a significant tumor suppression effect can be achieved by GSH depletion-induced ferroptosis. Moreover, the degradation of AMSNs during the GSH depletion contributed to T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enhancement as well as on-demand chemotherapeutic drug release for synergistic cancer therapy. We anticipate that the GSH-depletion-induced ferroptosis strategy by using manganese-based nanomaterials would provide insights in designing nanomedicines for tumor-targeted theranostics.
Keywords: GPX4; ferroptosis; glutathione; nanobubbles; theranostics.