How to optimize combination therapy against cancer is a long-standing concern of modern medicine. Compared with the monotherapy, there have been methodological advances, but therapeutic schemes devised to challenge cancers are frequently thwarted due to the lack of correlation between the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of various drugs in vivo, which results in inadequate dosages and intervals and compromised therapeutic effects. Therefore, a visible method to objectively evaluate and therefore precisely tailor the behaviors of drugs in vivo to obtain synergistic therapeutic effects would be of great importance.
Recently, a research team from Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a multiplexed intravital imaging strategy by using fluorescence in the second near-infrared window (NIR-II) to visualize the two events of chemotherapy and immunotherapy in vivo, so that a combinational administration is programed to improve the therapeutical effects against a mouse model of human breast cancer (Scheme 1). In detail, Ag₂Se quantum dots (QDs) (λ_Em =1350 nm) loaded with stromal-cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) and chemodrug doxorubicin (DOX) are first administrated to deliver the SDF-1α and DOX to the tumor site. After their arrival, monitored by Ag₂Se QD fluorescence, natural killer (NK)-92 cells labeled with Ag₂S QDs (λ_Em=1050 nm) are intravenously injected so that the cells are recruited to the tumor by the chemotaxis of SDF-1α, which is visualized by Ag₂S QD fluorescence. Such an imaging approach allows simultaneous evaluation of the behaviors of individual injections in vivo, and facilitates optimized administration regimens, resulting in enhanced tumor inhibition. This strategy can be extended and served as a convenient screening platform for optimization of various combinational therapeutic regimes and holds great promise for future clinical applications.

Scheme 1. Schematic illustration of multiplexed NIR‐II fluorescence imaging strategy to program the chemotherapy and immunotherapy against breast cancer. (Image by SINANO)

This work entitled "Programmable Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy against Breast Cancer Guided by Multiplexed Fluorescence Imaging in the Second Near-Infrared Window" was recently published in Advanced Materials. This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Contact information: Prof. Wang Qiangbin, Suzhou institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionic, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Email:qbwang2008@sinano.ac.cn
Reference: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.201804437