Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering , National University of Singapore , Singapore 117585 , Singapore.
Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) , Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR) , Singapore 138648 , Singapore.
ACS Nano. 2019 Mar 26;13(3):3095-3105. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.8b08398. Epub 2019 Feb 18.
Two-photon excited photodynamic therapy (2PE-PDT) has attracted great attention in recent years due to its great potential for deep-tissue and highly spatiotemporally precise cancer therapy. Photosensitizers (PSs) with high singlet oxygen (O) generation efficiency and large two-photon absorption (2PA) cross-sections are highly desirable, but the availability of such PSs is limited by challenges in molecular design. In this work, we report that the polymerization of small-molecule PSs with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) could yield conjugated polymer PSs with good brightness, high O generation efficiency, and large 2PA cross-sections. A pair of conjugated polymer PSs were designed and synthesized, and the corresponding AIE PS dots were prepared by nanoprecipitation, which exhibited outstanding 2PE-PDT performance in in vitro cancer cell ablation and in vivo zebrafish liver tumor treatment. Our work highlights a strategy to design highly efficient PSs for 2PE-PDT.
双光子激发光动力疗法（2PE-PDT）近年来受到了极大的关注，因为它在深部组织和高度时空精确的癌症治疗方面具有巨大的潜力。具有高效单重态氧（O）生成效率和大双光子吸收（2PA）截面的光敏剂（PSs）是非常理想的，但由于分子设计方面的挑战，这种 PSs 的可用性受到限制。在这项工作中，我们报告说，具有聚集诱导发射（AIE）的小分子 PSs 的聚合可以产生具有良好亮度、高效 O 生成效率和大 2PA 截面的共轭聚合物 PSs。我们设计并合成了一对共轭聚合物 PSs，并通过纳米沉淀法制备了相应的 AIE PS 点，它们在体外癌细胞消融和体内斑马鱼肝肿瘤治疗中表现出了出色的 2PE-PDT 性能。我们的工作强调了一种设计高效 PSs 用于 2PE-PDT 的策略。
