Plant-Derived Single-Molecule-Based Nanotheranostics for Photoenhanced Chemotherapy and Ferroptotic-Like Cancer Cell Death

Although piperine - an extract from pepper - has a mild chemotherapeutic effect, its poor water solubility has limited its applications for cancer therapy. With self-assembling of piperine into nanoparticles along with PEG (Pip NPs), both the water dispersibility and the chemotherapeutic efficacy can be substantially enhanced. It is further shown that the NPs can generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) with or without additional white light irradiation. Interestingly, the Pip NP induced cell death can be suppressed by ferroptosis inhibitors such as liproxstatin-1 and deferoxamine. Lipid ROS production is also observed in Pip NP treated cells. In addition to their cancer cell killing ability, the Pip NPs also show strong green fluorescence. These multiple functions make the Pip NPs a promising and low-cost nanotheranostic agent with herbal origin.