Artificial photoactive chlorophyll conjugated vanadium carbide nanostructure for synergistic photothermal/photodynamic therapy of cancer

Optically active nanostructures consisting of organic compounds and metallic support have shown great promise in phototherapy due to their increased light absorption capacity and high energy conversion. Herein, we conjugated chlorophyll (Chl) to vanadium carbide (V(2)C) nanosheets for combined photodynamic/photothermal therapy (PDT/PTT), which reserves the advantages of each modality while minimizing the side effects to achieve an improved therapeutic effect. In this system, the Chl from Leptolyngbya JSC-1 extracts acted as an efficient light-harvest antenna in a wide NIR range and photosensitizers (PSs) for oxygen self-generation hypoxia-relief PDT. The available large surface of two-dimensional (2D) V(2)C showed high Chl loading efficiency, and the interaction between organic Chl and metallic V(2)C led to energy conversion efficiency high to 78%. Thus, the Chl/ V(2)C nanostructure showed advanced performance in vitro cell line killing and completely ablated tumors in vivo with 100% survival rate under a single NIR irradiation. Our results suggest that the artificial optical Chl/V(2)C nanostructure will benefit photocatalytic tumor eradication clinic application. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-022-01331-x.