Atom-precise fluorescent copper cluster for tumor microenvironment targeting and transient chemodynamic cancer therapy

BACKGROUND: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been widely studied for cancer therapy. Nevertheless, instability and aspecific damages to cellular biomolecules limit the application effect. Recently, significant research efforts have been witnessed in the flourishing area of metal nanoclusters (NCs) with atomically precise structures for targeted release of ROS but few achieved success towards targeting tumor microenvironment. RESULTS: In this work, we reported an atomically precise nanocluster Cu(6)(C(4)H(3)N(2)S)(6) (Cu(6)NC), which could slowly break and generate ROS once encountered with acidic. The as-prepared Cu(6)NC demonstrated high biological safety and efficient chemodynamic anti-tumor properties. Moreover, Cu(6)NC enabled transient release of ROS and contained targeting behavior led by the tumor microenvironment. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments confirmed that Cu(6)NC demonstrated a low cytotoxicity for normal cells, while presented high cytotoxicity for tumor cells with a concentration-dependent manner. CONCLUSIONS: This work not only reported a promising candidate for chemodynamic cancer therapy, but also paved the route to address clinical issues at the atomic level. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-021-01207-6.