Zhang Yang, Wang Cai-Xia, Huang Shi-Wen
Key Laboratory of Biomedical Polymers of Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2018 Nov 7;8(11):921. doi: 10.3390/nano8110921.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a noninvasive treatment for selectively killing malignant tumor cells. The photosensitizer is a necessary component of photodynamic nanomedicine. Many efforts have been made to develop new photosensitizers for efficient cancer photodynamic therapy. In this work, we report a novel nano photosensitizer, polymeric micelles (AIE-M) with aggregation induced emission characteristic, for photodynamic cancer therapy. AIE-M with sub-20 nm particle size is prepared by the self-assembly of salicylaldazine-incorporated amphiphilic polymer (AIE-1), which can produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) with light irradiation in solution. After uptake by cancer cells, AIE-M can specially sojourn in plasma membranes of cancer cells at the early stage and predominantly accumulate in the mitochondria of cancer cell at the late stage. The phototoxicity of AIE-M, resulting from the generation of intracellular ROS with light irradiation, can efficiently cause cancer cells death by apoptosis and necrosis. The advantages of AIE-M as a nano photosensitizer include the small size, highly colloidal stability in the process of preparation and storage, and high cell penetration. The ultra-low Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC) of AIE-1, negligible dark toxicity and super phototoxicity of AIE-M suggest its promising potential for image-guided PDT.
光动力疗法（PDT）是一种用于选择性杀死恶性肿瘤细胞的非侵入性治疗方法。光敏剂是光动力纳米药物的必要组成部分。人们已做出许多努力来开发用于高效癌症光动力治疗的新型光敏剂。在这项工作中，我们报道了一种新型纳米光敏剂，即具有聚集诱导发光特性的聚合物胶束（AIE-M），用于光动力癌症治疗。粒径小于20 nm的AIE-M通过含水杨醛嗪的两亲性聚合物（AIE-1）的自组装制备，其在溶液中光照时可产生活性氧（ROS）。被癌细胞摄取后，AIE-M在早期可特异性地滞留在癌细胞的质膜中，后期主要积聚在癌细胞的线粒体中。AIE-M的光毒性源于光照产生细胞内ROS，可通过凋亡和坏死有效导致癌细胞死亡。AIE-M作为纳米光敏剂的优点包括尺寸小、在制备和储存过程中具有高度的胶体稳定性以及高细胞穿透性。AIE-1的超低临界胶束浓度（CMC）、可忽略不计的暗毒性和AIE-M的超强光毒性表明其在图像引导的光动力疗法中具有广阔的应用前景。
