In this article, a type of small-sized metal organic framework (MOF), MIL-101(Fe), as an intelligent delivery system was fabricated to load chemotherapy drug dihydroartemisinin (DHA) and photosensitizer methylene blue (MB). In addition, the Fe ions releasedfrom the MOFs in the tumor environment not only enhanced the curative effect of DHA but also catalyzed H2O2 to release O2, which further improved the photodynamic therapeutic effect of the nanocomposites. The nanocomposites can serve as a T2 magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent at the same time. The polylactic acid (PLA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) were used to modify the surface of MOFs-MB-DHA to acquire the excellent controllable release of drugs and good biocompatibility to decrease the side effects for normal cells. All the results show remarkably increase of the therapeutic efficiency by synergistic chemo-photodynamic therapy. Thus, a smart multifunctional drug delivery system for diagnosis and therapy based on MOFs-MB-DHA@PLA@PEG was constructed for not only real-time imaging but also chemotherapy and photodynamic synergetic therapy to kill the tumor selectively, showing great potential for conquering the existing barrier in chemo-photodynamic synergetic therapy.
Keywords: MOFs; chemotherapy; dihydroartemisinin; photodynamic therapy; synergetic therapy.