Hydrogen Therapy with Platinum-Bismuth Sulfide Schottky HeterostructureScientific Research

Abstract:

Conventional sonodynamic therapy (SDT) is unavoidably limited by the tumor microenvironment although many sonosensitizers have been developed to improve them to a certain extent. Given this, we propose a concept of sonocatalytic hydrogen evolution and define it as an oxygen-independent therapeutics. To demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, narrow-bandgap semiconductor bismuth sulfide (Bi2 S3 ) are selected as sonocatalysts and platinum (Pt) nanoparticles are grown in situ to optimize their catalytic performance. In this nanocatalytic system, Pt nanoparticles help to capture sono-excited electrons, whereas intratumoral overexpressed glutathione (GSH) as natural hole sacrificial agents can consume sono-excited holes, which greatly improves charge separation efficiency and promote the controllable and sustainable H2 generation. Even under hypoxic conditions, the Pt-Bi2 S3 nanoparticles can also produce sufficient H2 under US irradiation. Mechanistically, mitochondrial dysfunction caused by H2 and intratumoral redox homeostasis destruction by GSH depletion synergistically damage DNA to induce tumor cells apoptosis. At the same time, Pt nanoparticles and holes can also trigger the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into O2 to relieve tumor hypoxia, thus synergistic with GSH depletion to reverse tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. The proposed sonocatalysis mediated therapy will provide a new direction to realize facile and efficient cancer therapy. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.