Fig. 7: Assessment of the therapeutic efficiency of BC@Z-M in vivo.

a Schematic illustration showing the treatment procedure and assessment of therapeutic efficacy of BC@Z-M in 4T1 tumor-bearing mice. Created in BioRender. Li, W. (2024) BioRender.com/d03e195. b Temperature changes at the tumor site of mice injected with BC@Z-M or BC@Z under 730 nm light (1.0 W cm⁻²) irradiation. c Tumor growth curve, (d) tumor photographs, and (e) tumor weights of different treatment groups (n = 5 mice). f Representative CLSM images of the tumor sections stained with CD31, and (g) corresponding MFI of CD31 in tumor sections from mice receiving various treatments (n = 3 mice). Scale bar: 100 μm. h TUNEL staining images of tumor slices collected from the mice in different groups. The cell nuclei were stained with DAPI (blue fluorescence). Scale bar: 100 μm. i Representative photographs of India ink-stained lungs harvested from the mice in different groups. j Quantification of the lung metastasis nodes in different groups (n = 5 mice). Representative H&E staining images of (k) lung and (l) liver sections from mice subjected to various treatments. Dashed outlines indicate lung and liver metastases in the H&E staining images. Scale bars: 100 μm. m The changes of body weight and (n) survival curves of 4T1 tumor-bearing mice following different treatments (n = 5 mice). o Rechallenged tumor growth curve and (p) survival rate of mice in the “BC@Z-M + L”-treated or control group after 4T1 cancer cells rechallenge (n = 5 mice). All data are presented as mean ± SD. For (f, h, k, and l), experiment was repeated three times independently with similar results. For (c, e, g, and j), statistical significance was determined using one-way ANOVA; for (o), statistical significance was determined using two-tailed Student’s t-test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.