Anti-EGFR Antibody Conjugation of Fucoidan-Coated Gold Nanorods as Novel Photothermal Ablation Agents for Cancer Therapy

The development of novel photothermal ablation agents as cancer nanotheranostics has received a great deal of attention in recent decades. Biocompatible fucoidan (Fu) is used as the coating material for gold nanorods (AuNRs) and subsequently conjugated with monoclonal antibodies against epidermal growth factor receptor (anti-EGFR) as novel photothermal ablation agents for cancer nanotheranostics because of their excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, water solubility, photostability, ease of surface modification, strongly enhanced absorption in near-infrared (NIR) regions, target specificity, minimal invasiveness, fast recovery, and prevention of damage to normal tissues. Anti-EGFR Fu-AuNRs have an average particle size of 96.37 ± 3.73 nm. Under 808 nm NIR laser at 2 W/cm² for 5 min, the temperature of the solution containing anti-EGFR Fu-AuNRs (30 μg/mL) increased by 52.1 °C. The anti-EGFR Fu-AuNRs exhibited high efficiency for the ablation of MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro. In vivo photothermal ablation exhibited that tumor tissues fully recovered without recurrence and finally were reconstructed with normal tissues by the 808 nm NIR laser irradiation after injection of anti-EGFR Fu-AuNRs. These results suggest that the anti-EGFR Fu-AuNRs would be novel photoablation agents for future cancer nanotheranostics.