Self-assembly provides an easy and inexpensive way of producing ensembles of colloidal nanocrystals with unique plasmonic, photoluminescence, electronic and magnetic relaxation properties in a controllable manner[1,2]. Here, we design and fabricate the self-assembled metal oxide nanocrystals via chemically defined surface polymeric ligand engineering. The resulting colloidal nanoscale ensembles are chemically responsive to tumor microenvironmental stimulus, thus can be used as colloidal nanoscale theranostic agents for ultrasensitive integrated cancer diagnosis and therapy. Self-assembled nanocrystals with size below 100 nm were characterized by HRTEM, 1H-NMR, FTIR, UV, TGA, DLS, GPC, SQUID and MTT assays for the evaluation of chemical structure, morphology and biocompatibility. Both the imaging and therapeutic functions of these self-assembled nanocrystals were well controlled via reversible assembly-disassembly process. These self-assembled nanocrystals can readily target tumors in vivo, and are further disassembled into a highly active state in tumor microenvironment that �turn on� their imaging and anti-cancer effect. We show that the self-assembled nanocrystals enable multi-modal tumor diagnosis at an early stage in vivo. We also demonstrate that they have superior therapeutic efficacy in several different types of tumor xenografts in mice, thus indicating great potential for clinical cancer treatments.References:[1] Ling, D.; Park, W.; Park, Y. I.; Lee, N.; Li, F.; Song, C.; Yang, S.-G.; Choi, S. H.; Na, K.; Hyeon, T. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 11360� 11365[2] Ling, D. and Hyeon, T. Small 2013, in press

Polymer-assisted self-assembly of metal oxide nanocrystals for ultrasensitive cancer theranostics

246th National Meeting (2013)

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