Designing cancer nanodrugs that are highly loaded, pH-responsive, photothermal, and possess a favored morphology: A hierarchical assembly of DOX and layer-by-layer modified rGO

[Display omitted] A facile strategy to construct the multifunctional rGO-DOX nanodrugs by hydrogen bonding is reported. The nanodrugs are highly loaded, pH-responsive, photothermal, and possess a favored morphology. An effective cancer nanodrug not only needs to load a large fraction of pharmaceutical molecules and release them in responsive ways, to function as imaging and photothermal agents, but also needs to possess the favorable morphologies that are favored by the EPR effect of cancer tissues. In this study, we designed a spherical nanodrug by forming clusters using DOX and a polymer-engineered rGO. These spherical nanodrugs had a diameter of around 750nm and assumed both functionalities of chemical therapy and the photothermal effect. In addition, this nanodrug featured a high-loading capability of DOX, a pH-responsive release profile, a self-fluorescent capability, and an effective accumulation in cancer cells. The layer-by-layer assembly of three cycles of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) around the rGO core was indispensable in achieving a chemically-modified rGO precursor that assembled with DOX to produce the spherical nanodrug. The spherical nanodrug effectively decreased cell viability upon NIR irradiations.