How to fabricate zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) based therapeutic nanoplatform will be of significance in biomedicine considering its good biocompatibility. Herein, we report a one-step encapsulation of indocyanine green (ICG) in ZIF-8 nanoparticles (NPs). The as-prepared ICG@ZIF-8 NPs possess an absorption band in the near infrared region and have the good photothermal conversion efficiency. The in vivo and in vitro studies show that, after loading chemotherapy agent hydrophobic doxorubicin (DOX), ICG@ZIF-8-DOX NPs exhibit the chem-and photothermal synergistic therapy for tumor. In addition, it is found that the embedded ICG molecules in ICG@ZIF-8 NPs can be disassociated and released into the solution upon the 808nm laser irradiation, demonstrating that as-prepared ICG@ZIF-8 NPs can also be used as the optical imaging probe to trace the degradability behavior of resulting NPs in future