Rajaram Jagadeesh, Mende Lokesh Kumar, Kuthati Yaswanth
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien 974, Taiwan.
Department of Anesthesiology, Cathy General Hospital, Taipei 106, Taiwan.
Pharmaceutics. 2024 Aug 24;16(9):1120. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics16091120.
Natural photosensitizers (PS) are compounds derived from nature, with photodynamic properties. Natural PSs have a similar action to that of commercial PSs, where cancer cell death occurs by necrosis, apoptosis, and autophagy through ROS generation. Natural PSs have garnered great interest over the last few decades because of their high biocompatibility and good photoactivity. Specific wavelengths could cause phytochemicals to produce harmful ROS for photodynamic therapy (PDT). However, natural PSs have some shortcomings, such as reduced solubility and lower uptake, making them less appropriate for PDT. Nanotechnology offers an opportunity to develop suitable carriers for various natural PSs for PDT applications. Various nanoparticles have been developed to improve the outcome with enhanced solubility, optical adsorption, and tumor targeting. Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a phenomenon in which tumor cells develop resistance to a wide range of structurally and functionally unrelated drugs. Over the last decade, several researchers have extensively studied the effect of natural PS-based photodynamic treatment (PDT) on MDR cells. Though the outcomes of clinical trials for natural PSs were inconclusive, significant advancement is still required before PSs can be used as a PDT agent for treating MDR tumors. This review addresses the increasing literature on MDR tumor progression and the efficacy of PDT, emphasizing the importance of developing new nano-based natural PSs in the fight against MDR that have the required features for an MDR tumor photosensitizing regimen.
天然光敏剂（PS）是源自自然界的具有光动力特性的化合物。天然PS的作用与商业PS类似，即通过产生活性氧（ROS），使癌细胞通过坏死、凋亡和自噬而死亡。在过去几十年中，天然PS因其高生物相容性和良好的光活性而备受关注。特定波长可使植物化学物质产生用于光动力疗法（PDT）的有害ROS。然而，天然PS存在一些缺点，如溶解度降低和摄取率较低，这使得它们不太适合用于PDT。纳米技术为开发适用于各种天然PS的PDT应用载体提供了契机。人们已开发出各种纳米颗粒，以通过提高溶解度、光学吸附和肿瘤靶向性来改善治疗效果。多药耐药性（MDR）是一种肿瘤细胞对多种结构和功能无关药物产生耐药性的现象。在过去十年中，一些研究人员广泛研究了基于天然PS的光动力治疗（PDT）对MDR细胞的影响。尽管天然PS的临床试验结果尚无定论，但在PS可作为治疗MDR肿瘤的PDT药物之前，仍需要取得重大进展。本综述阐述了关于MDR肿瘤进展和PDT疗效的文献不断增加的情况，强调了开发新型纳米基天然PS在对抗MDR中的重要性，这些天然PS应具备MDR肿瘤光敏方案所需的特性。
