KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate the efficacy of BMO-MXene heterojunctions as ultrasound-responsive ferroptosis inducers in OC.
- Researchers noticed that BMO-MXene effectively induced ferroptosis and stimulated immunogenic cell death, offering a promising therapeutic strategy for OC.
Ovarian cancer (OC) has the highest fatality rate among all gynecological malignancies, necessitating the exploration of novel, efficient, and low-toxicity therapeutic strategies. Ferroptosis is a type of programmed cell death induced by iron-dependent lipid peroxidation and can potentially activate antitumor immunity. Developing highly effective ferroptosis inducers may improve OC prognosis.
Shuangshuang Cheng and the team aimed to assess the efficacy of BMO-MXene heterojunctions as ultrasound-responsive ferroptosis inducers in OC.
They performed an inclusive analysis, involving both in vitro and in vivo experiments, to evaluate the efficacy of the Bi2MoO6-MXene (BMO-MXene) heterojunction as a ferroptosis inducer. Patients’ OC cells were subjected to ultrasound stimulation in the presence of the BMO-MXene heterojunction.
The formation of a Schottky heterojunction between BMO and MXene was confirmed, which resulted in a reduction of the bandgap width by 0.44 eV, increased carrier-separation efficiency, and decreased recombination rate of electron-hole pairs under ultrasound stimulation.
These changes led to an enhanced yield of reactive oxygen species. The analysis showed that under spatiotemporal ultrasound excitation, BMO-MXene effectively inhibited OC proliferation by more than 90%.
The induced lipid peroxidation decreased mitochondrial-membrane potential, and inactivated the glutathione peroxidase and cystathionine transporter protein system, thereby causing ferroptosis in tumor cells. This induced ferroptosis in OC cells further activated immunogenic cell death, facilitating dendritic cell maturation and stimulating antitumor immunity.
The study concluded that the development of the BMO-MXene heterojunction as an ultrasound-responsive ferroptosis inducer is a highly effective therapeutic strategy for OC. This innovative approach successfully inhibited OC progression through the sonodynamic-ferroptosis-immunogenic cell death pathway, demonstrating its potential to improve OC prognosis by inducing ferroptosis and stimulating antitumor immunity.
This study was funded by the International Science and technology cooperation project of Hubei Province (GJHZ2021000024).
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38992664/
Cheng S, Zhou T, Luo Y, et al. (2024). “Ultrasound-responsive Bi2MoO6-MXene heterojunction as ferroptosis inducers for stimulating immunogenic cell death against ovarian cancer.” J Nanobiotechnology. 2024 Jul 11;22(1):408. doi: 10.1186/s12951-024-02658-3. PMID: 38992664; PMCID: PMC11238442.
