Acceptor Planarization and Donor Rotation: A Facile Strategy for Realizing Synergistic Cancer Phototherapy via Type I PDT and PTT

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 16; no. 3; pp. 4162 - 4174
• Main Authors: Feng, Lina, Li, Chunbin, Liu, Lingxiu, Wang, Zhiyi, Chen, Zihan, Yu, Jia, Ji, Weiwei, Jiang, Guoyu, Zhang, Pengfei, Wang, Jianguo, Tang, Ben Zhong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 22-03-2022
• Subjects: Humans; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Neoplasms - drug therapy; Photochemotherapy; Photosensitizing Agents - chemistry; Photosensitizing Agents - pharmacology; Photosensitizing Agents - therapeutic use; Phototherapy; Triazenes; aggregation-induced emission; acceptor planarization; photodynamic-photothermal synergetic therapeutics; donor rotation; type I photosensitizer
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c10019

Tumor hypoxia seriously impairs the therapeutic outcomes of type II photodynamic therapy (PDT), which is highly dependent upon tissue oxygen concentration. Herein, a facile strategy of acceptor planarization and donor rotation is proposed to design type I photosensitizers (PSs) and photothermal reagents. Acceptor planarization can not only enforce intramolecular charge transfer to redshift NIR absorption but also transfer the type of PSs from type II to type I photochemical pathways. Donor rotation optimizes photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE). Accordingly, three 3,6-divinyl-substituted diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) derivatives, 2TPA­VDPP, TPAT­PEV­DPP, and 2TPE­VDPP, with different number of rotors were prepared. Experimental results showed that three compounds were excellent type I PSs, and the corresponding 2TPE­VDPP nanop­articles (NPs) with the most rotors possessed the highest PCE. The photophysical properties of 2TPE­VDPP NPs are particularly suitable for in vivo NIR fluorescence imaging-guided synergistic PDT/PTT therapy. The proposed strategy is helpful for exploiting type I phototherapeutic reagents with high efficacy for synergistic PDT and PTT.