Engineering Cross-Linkable Plasmonic Vesicles for Synergistic Chemo-Photothermal Therapy Using Orthogonal Light Irradiation

Plasmonic vesicles combine the advantages of polymersomes and physiochemical properties of inorganic nanoparticles, exhibiting promising applications in theranostic nanovectors. However, although many of these plasmonic vesicles have been engineered as photothermal therapy (PTT) agents and drug carriers, they undergo structural destruction due to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect. Notably, the disassembly of plasmonic vesicles leads to the burst release of encapsulated payloads and drastically decrease therapeutic efficacy. Herein, we report the fabrication of plasmonic vesicles that can be tracelessly cross-linked under 410 nm blue light irradiation, which can effectively avoid being disassembled when localized heat generation under light irradiation (e.g., 560 nm). Amphiphilic hybrid gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) functionalized with hydrophilic poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and hydrophobic poly(2-((((2-nitrobenzyl)oxy)carbonyl)amino)ethyl methacrylate) (PNBOC) blocks were synthesized via ligan...