Porous Gold Nanoshells on Functional NH₂ -MOFs: Facile Synthesis and Designable Platforms for Cancer Multiple Therapy

AuroShell nanoparticles (sealed gold nanoshell on silica) are the only inorganic materials that are approved for clinical trial for photothermal ablation of solid tumors. Based on that, porous gold nanoshell structures are thus critical for cancer multiple theranostics in the future owing to their inherent cargo-loading ability. Nevertheless, adjusting the diverse experimental parameters of the reported procedures to obtain porous gold nanoshell structures is challenging. Herein, a series of amino-functionalized porous metal-organic frameworks (NH₂ -MOFs) nanoparticles are uncovered as superior templates for porous gold nanoshell deposition (NH₂ -MOFs@Au_shell ) by means of a more facile and general one-step method, which combines the enriched functionalities of NH₂ -MOFs with those of porous gold nanoshells. Moreover, in order to illustrate the promising applications of this method in biomedicine, platinum nanozymes-encapsulated NH₂ -MOFs are further designed with porous gold nanoshell coating and photosensitizer chlorin e6 (Ce6)-loaded nanoparticles with continuous O₂ -evolving ability (Pt@UiO-66-NH₂ @Au_shell -Ce6). The combination of photodynamic and photothermal therapy is then carried out both in vitro and in vivo, achieving excellent synergistic therapeutic outcomes. Therefore, this work not only presents a facile strategy to fabricate functionalized porous gold nanoshell structures, but also illustrates an excellent synergistic tumor therapy strategy.