Proapoptotic Peptide-Templated Au Nanoclusters Selectively Enhance Radiosensitivity of Cancer Cells

Radiotherapy is an important treatment strategy in clinical oncology, but patients still take the risk of severe side effects when receiving radiation. It is urgent to develop safe and efficient radiosensitizers to selectively enhance tumor radiosensitivity and thus reduce the effective irradiation dose. In this work, we design and synthesize peptide-templated Au nanoclusters (AuNCs) as tumor-targeted nanoradiosensitizers. A newly designed pro-apoptotic peptide (CCYKLA) is introduced for the synthesis of AuNCs. We demonstrate that KLA@AuNCs exhibit uniform size distribution and good photoluminescence (PL) characteristics as well as highly efficient tumor targeting and selective enhancement of cancer cell radiosensitivity. In synergy with radiotherapy, KLA@AuNCs effectively inhibited tumor growth in vivo and exhibited good biosafety. The present work provides a promising strategy for selectively improving the radiosensitivity of cancer cells by nanomaterials and facilitates the clinical translation of nanoradiosensitizers.