In vivo chemo-photothermal therapy. (A) The infrared thermal image of tumor-bearing mice under an 808-nm NIR laser irradiation at 8 h post intravenous injection of PBS, Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs and PTX-loaded Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs with 1 W/cm2 for 120 s. (B) Tumor growth and (C) body weight of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer-bearing mice after various treatments. Groups were given PBS, Taxol, Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs with laser irradiation, PTX-loaded Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs without laser irradiation and PTX-loaded Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs with laser irradiation. The data are presented as the mean ± S.D. (n = 5). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.001. (D) Photographs of tumors with different treatments: a) PBS, b) Taxol, c) PTX-loaded Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs without laser irradiation, d) Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs with laser irradiation, and e) PTX-loaded Pluronic-PLL@Au NPs with laser irradiation. (E) Images of H&E-stained tumor from the MDA-MB-231 tumor-bearing mice with different treatments (scale bar = 100 μm).