Photothermal seleno-polysaccharide polymer nanocomposites mediating mitochondria function to anti-tumor therapy

Mediating mitochondria function is essentially challenging but actually significance for biomedicine. However, remote non-invasive regulation of mitochondria function in a living system has been seldom demonstrated and further developed for potential therapy. In here, we prepared a seleno-polysaccharide polymer nanocomposite owning photothermal activity to increase anti-tumor therapy capacity. Such a nanocomposite comprises two key constitutions: near infrared polymer amphiphile and seleno-polysaccharide, acting as photothermal nanotransducer and temperature-sensitive reactive oxygen species (ROS) accelerator, respectively. Under near infrared irradiation (NIR), the productivity of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) can be increased by 1.5-fold to efficiently mitochondrial dysfunction, leading to endogenous mitochondrial apoptosis. This design thus enables provide a promising approach to remotely mediate mitochondria-mediated apoptosis for anti-tumor therapy.