Near-infrared (NIR)-induced dye-based theranostic drug delivery carriers are used for critical image-guided chemo-photothermal cancer therapy. However, most carriers fail to deliver sufficient heat and fluorescence efficiently due to direct π-π stacking of the aromatic rings of the NIR dye and drug. In the work reported herein, we examined a self-assembled heptamethine cyanine dye dimer (CyD) with improved heat and fluorescence delivery that was developed by manipulating the unique structural and optical properties of the dimer. The H-aggregation of CyD in an aqueous solution generated a great amount of heat by transforming the energy of the excited electrons into non-radiative energy. Moreover, the disulfide bond of CyD assisted nanoparticles with a drug by minimizing the interaction between the NIR dye and drug, and also by releasing the drug in a redox environment. As a result, DOX encapsulated within CyD (CyD/DOX) showed strong heat generation and fluorescence imaging in tumor-bearing mice, allowing detection of the tumor site and inhibition of tumor growth by chemo-photothermal therapy. The multiplicity of features supplied by the newly developed CyD demonstrated the potential of CyD/DOX as an NIR dye-based theranostic drug-delivery carrier for effective chemo-photothermal cancer therapy.

近红外（NIR）诱导的基于染料的治疗药物治疗载体被用于关键的图像引导化学光热癌症治疗。但是，由于NIR染料和药物的芳环直接π-π堆积，大多数载体无法有效地传递足够的热量和荧光。在本文报道的工作中，我们研究了通过操纵二聚体的独特结构和光学性质而开发的具有改善的热量和荧光传递的自组装七甲胺花青染料二聚体（CyD）。水溶液中CyD的H聚集通过将激发电子的能量转换为非辐射能而产生大量热量。此外，CyD辅助的纳米颗粒与药物的二硫键通过使NIR染料与药物之间的相互作用最小化来实现，以及在氧化还原环境中释放药物。结果，封装在CyD中的DOX（CyD / DOX）在荷瘤小鼠中显示出强大的热量产生和荧光成像，从而可以通过化学光热疗法检测肿瘤部位并抑制肿瘤生长。新开发的CyD提供的多种功能证明了CyD / DOX作为有效的化学光热癌症疗法的基于NIR染料的治疗药物传递载体的潜力。