Dipartimento di Scienza Dei Materiali, Università Degli Studi Milano-Bicocca, 20125 Milano, Italy.
NANOMIB, Center for Biomedical Nanomedicine, University of Milano-Bicocca, P.zza Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 May 24;15(20):24693-24700. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c00853. Epub 2023 May 12.
Multicomponent nanomaterials consisting of dense scintillating particles functionalized by or embedding optically active conjugated photosensitizers (PSs) for cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) have been proposed in the last decade as coadjuvant agents for radiotherapy of cancer. They have been designed to make scintillation-activated sensitizers for ROS production in an aqueous environment under exposure to ionizing radiations. However, a detailed understanding of the global energy partitioning process occurring during the scintillation is still missing, in particular regarding the role of the non-radiative energy transfer between the nanoscintillator and the conjugated moieties which is usually considered crucial for the activation of PSs and therefore pivotal to enhance the therapeutic effect. We investigate this mechanism in a series of PS-functionalized scintillating nanotubes where the non-radiative energy transfer yield has been tuned by control of the intermolecular distance between the nanotube and the conjugated system. The obtained results indicate that non-radiative energy transfer has a negligible effect on the ROS sensitization efficiency, thus opening the way to the development of different architectures for breakthrough radiotherapy coadjutants to be tested in clinics.
在过去的十年中，由密集闪烁颗粒组成的多组分纳米材料已被提议作为癌症放射治疗的辅助剂，这些颗粒由功能化的或嵌入的光活性共轭光敏剂 (PS) 组成，用于产生细胞毒性的活性氧 (ROS)。它们的设计目的是在暴露于电离辐射下的水相环境中，通过闪烁来激活 ROS 的产生。然而，对于在闪烁过程中发生的全局能量分配过程，仍然缺乏详细的了解，特别是对于纳米闪烁体和共轭部分之间的非辐射能量转移的作用，通常认为这对于 PS 的激活至关重要，因此对于增强治疗效果至关重要。我们在一系列 PS 功能化的闪烁纳米管中研究了这一机制，其中通过控制纳米管和共轭体系之间的分子间距离来调节非辐射能量转移的产率。所得结果表明，非辐射能量转移对 ROS 敏化效率的影响可以忽略不计，从而为开发不同的结构开辟了道路，这些结构将作为突破性放射治疗辅助剂在临床上进行测试。
