PDGFB targeting biodegradable FePt alloy assembly for MRI guided starvation-enhancing chemodynamic therapy of cancer

The application of chemodynamic therapy (CDT) for cancer is a serious challenge owing to the low efficiency of the Fenton catalyst and insufficient H(2)O(2) expression in cells. Herein, we fabricated a PDGFB targeting, biodegradable FePt alloy assembly for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided chemotherapy and starving-enhanced chemodynamic therapy for cancer using PDGFB targeting, pH-sensitive liposome-coated FePt alloys, and GOx (pLFePt-GOx). We found that the Fenton-catalytic activity of FePt alloys was far stronger than that of traditional ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticle (UION). Upon entry into cancer cells, pLFePt-GOx nanoliposomes degraded into many tiny FePt alloys and released GOx owing to the weakly acidic nature of the tumor microenvironment (TME). The released GOx-mediated glucose consumption not only caused a starvation status but also increased the level of cellular H(2)O(2) and acidity, promoting Fenton reaction by FePt alloys and resulting in an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation in cells, which ultimately realized starving-enhanced chemodynamic process for killing tumor cells. The anticancer mechanism of pLFePt-GOx involved ROS-mediated apoptosis and ferroptosis, and glucose depletion-mediated starvation death. In the in vivo assay, the systemic delivery of pLFePt-GOx showed excellent antitumor activity with low biological toxicity and significantly enhanced T(2)-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal of the tumor, indicating that pLFePt-GOx can serve as a highly efficient theranostic tool for cancer. This work thus describes an effective, novel multi-modal cancer theranostic system. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-022-01482-x.