METAL-ORGANIC FRAMEWORK ASSISTED PHOTO-CHEMO ANTICANCER THERAPY

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) represents an attractive approach for oncotherapy since it is spatiotemporally precise, readily controllable, non-invasive, and with minimum side effects. As the therapeutic effect of standalone PDT is far from satisfactory and the combination of PDT with chemotherapy (CT) is able to induce antitumor immunity and revert multidrug resistance, PDT combined with CT has recently received extensive scientific attention. The complex tumor microenvironment (TME), noncontrollable delivery, and activation of chemodrugs and photosensitizers (PSs) limit the clinical efficacy of photodynamic therapy in combination with chemotherapy. In this thesis, metal-organic-framework (MOF)-assisted strategies of overcoming the above limitations for PS or chemodrug agents have been proposed for optimized anticancer photo-chemo therapy. The strategies are systematically evaluated in vitro and in vivo to verify the design feasibility.