Homogenous multifunctional microspheres induce ferroptosis to promote the anti-hepatocarcinoma effect of chemoembolization

Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is one of the main palliative therapies for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is also regarded as a promising therapeutic strategy for cancer treatment. However, drug-loaded microspheres (DLMs), as commonly used clinical chemoembolization drugs, still have the problems of uneven particle size and unstable therapeutic efficacy. Herein, gelatin was used as the wall material of the microspheres, and homogenous gelatin microspheres co-loaded with adriamycin and Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles (ADM/Fe(3)O(4)-MS) were further prepared by a high-voltage electrospray technology. The introduction of Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles into DLMs not only provided excellent T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) properties, but also improved the anti-tumor effectiveness under microwave-induced hyperthermia. The results showed that ADM/Fe(3)O(4)-MS plus microwave irradiation had significantly better antitumor efficacy than the other types of microspheres at both cell and animal levels. Our study further confirmed that ferroptosis was involved in the anti-tumor process of ADM/Fe(3)O(4)-MS plus microwave irradiation, and ferroptosis marker GPX4 was significantly decreased and ACSL4 was significantly increased, and ferroptosis inhibitors could reverse the tumor cell killing effect caused by ADM/Fe(3)O(4)-MS to a certain extent. Our results confirmed that microwave mediated hyperthermia could amplify the antitumor efficacy of ADM/Fe(3)O(4)-MS by activating ferroptosis and the introduction of Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles can significantly improve TACE for HCC. This study confirmed that it was feasible to use uniform-sized gelatin microspheres co-loaded with Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles and adriamycin to enhance the efficacy of TACE for HCC. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-022-01385-x.