Jiamin Qin,1,* Guojuan Fan,2,* Yanna Lv,1,* Junxiao Zhang,1 Shenglin Geng,1 Lan Ma,1 Ling Wang,1 Jiaxin Yang,3,4 Weifen Zhang,1,5,6 Yizhou Zhan,3,4 Xiaoji Wang,4,7 Jinlong Ma1,5,6 

1School of Pharmacy, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong, 261053, People’s Republic of China; 2Dermatology, Weifang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong, 261000, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Materials Science and Engineering, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, Guangdong Province, 523808, People’s Republic of China; 4Songshan Lake Innovation Center of Medicine and Engineering, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, Guangdong Province, 523808, People’s Republic of China; 5Collaborative Innovation Center for Target Drug Delivery System, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong, 261053, People’s Republic of China; 6Shandong Engineering Research Center for Smart Materials and Regenerative Medicine, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong, 261053, People’s Republic of China; 7School of Chemical Engineering and Energy Technology, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, Guangdong Province, 523808, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Yizhou Zhan; Jinlong Ma, Email zhanyizhou@dgut.edu.cn; majinlong99@hotmail.com

Introduction: Owing to the uneven distribution of photothermal agents (PTAs), photothermal therapy (PTT) can damage normal tissues. The dynamic reversible covalent bond, which can significantly improve the oxidation stability of the drug and the characteristics of responsive drug release, thus improving the conversion efficiency of the drug, is a feasible solution to enhance the selective PTT for tumor treatment.
Methods: The nanoassembly loaded curcumin (Cur) with dynamic covalent boronate and encapsulated Indocyanine Green (ICG) in the phospholipid bilayer by dynamic self-assembly.
Results: The pH-responsive dynamic covalent bond-based nanoassembly system has great selective release of drugs in the tumor microenvironment and photothermal conversion efficiency. Furthermore, LIP-C/I could increase the antitumor effect through the combination of PTT and chemotherapy (CT). The experiments in vitro and in vivo have demonstrated that LIP-C/I could enhance selective PTT for tumor treatment.
Discussion: Our nanoassembly system provides an alternative approach for enhancing selective PTT for tumor treatment using dynamic covalent boronate.

Keywords: dynamic covalent bond, nanoassembly, curcumin, photothermal therapy, tumor treatment