Exceptionally High Payload of Doxorubicin in Hollow Gold Nanospheres for Near-Infrared Light-Triggered Drug Release

We report dual-functional hollow gold nanospheres (HAuNS, ∼40-nm diameter) capable of mediating both photothermal ablation of cancer cells and drug release upon near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation. As high as 63% DOX by weight (∼1.7 μg DOX/μg Au) could be loaded to polyethylene glycol (PEG)-coated HAuNS since DOX was coated to both the outer and the inner surfaces of HAuNS. Irradiation with NIR laser induced photothermal conversion, which triggered rapid DOX release from DOX-loaded HAuNS. The release of DOX was also pH-dependent, with more DOX released in aqueous solution at lower pH. Significantly greater cell killing was observed when MDA-MB-231 cells incubated with DOX-loaded HAuNS were irradiated with NIR light, attributable to both HAuNS-mediated photothermal ablation and cytotoxicity of released free DOX.