Injectable Hydrogel for NIR-II Photo-Thermal Tumor Therapy and Dihydroartemisinin-Mediated Chemodynamic Therapy

In traditional Chinese medicine, dihydroartemisinin (DHA) is the focus of extensive attention because of its unique activity with Fe to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and promote apoptosis. In this work, we designed a newfangled ink@hydrogel containing FeCl , traditional Chinese ink (Hu Kaiwen ink), and agarose hydrogel to create a synergistic activity with DHA in the treatment of cancer. When the system is irradiated under 1,064 nm for a few minutes, the ink in the ink@hydrogel converts the light to heat and hyperthermia causes the reversible hydrolysis of hydrogel. Then, Fe quickly diffuses from the hydrogel to the tumor microenvironment and is reduced to Fe to break the endoperoxide bridge in pre-injected DHA, which results in the release of free radicals for a potent anticancer action. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a hydrogel tumor therapy system that induces a photo-thermal response in the second near infrared window (NIR-II). experiments also showed a significant effect of DHA-Fe in chemodynamic therapy (CDT) and in photo-thermal therapy. This hydrogel platform provided an encouraging idea for synergistic tumor therapy.