Abstract
Hypoxia and nonspecific killing always hinder the photodynamic therapy of malignant tumors and infectious diseases that both severely threatening human health. Herein, we report a type I photosensitizer (MTOTPy) with aggregation-induced near-infrared (NIR) emission feature and specific identification ability by rational molecular design. Enhanced electron-donating effect and electron-rich anion-π+ structure endow MTOTPy with strong NIR fluorescence and intensive type I reactive oxygen species generation in aggregation. It is demonstrated that MTOTPy can achieve fast identification of tumor cells by targeting mitochondria and specific recognition of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) among other kinds of microbes. Moreover, MTOTPy can kill more than 90% tumor cells and S. aureus upon visible light irradiation at low concentration of 5.0 μM and 0.5 μM, respectively. The work provides a feasible idea for designing photosensitizers to overcome the hypoxic limitation of photodynamic therapy and advance the development of image-guided therapy with high efficiency.
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