Construction of 5-fluorouracil loaded polydopamine tailored zeolite imidazole framework (ZIF-8) as potential treatment for osteosarcoma cancer

The significant adverse effects and chemoresistance accompanying single-agent chemotherapy reduce its therapeutic effectiveness. The synergistic treatment of osteosarcoma with chemotherapy and photothermal therapy (PTT) has attracted much interest recently due to the improved therapeutic effectiveness of anticancer drugs. In this research, we engineered a new 5-fluorouracil (5FU) by modifying ZIF-8 nanocomposites with polydopamine (PD) and loading them with the drugs. Here, modifying PD prevented the drug's explosive release, enhanced the nanocomposites' biocompatibility, and rendered it more successful at absorbing near-infrared (NIR) light. Excellent photothermal effects were also seen when the PD/5FU@ZIF-8 NCs were exposed to NIR light and employed as a drug-targeted delivery device. In vitro biological tests showed that PD/5FU@ZIF-8 NCs effectively lowered mitochondrial membrane potentials (MMPs) in 143B cells, resulting in death; the addition of photothermal properties improved the anticancer impact and reduced the chemotherapeutic drug dose. In addition, the optimized PD/5FU@ZIF-8 NCs (30 μg/mL) demonstrated enhanced photothermal transformation capability and aided the killing of tumor cells. These findings definitively demonstrate that PD/5FU@ZIF-8 NCs have an additive impact on chemo-photothermal therapy and remarkable biocompatibility; these results have strong potential for preclinical translation for osteosarcoma and other cancer cells.