Enhanced photodynamic therapy by encapsulation of perfluorocarbon into PEGylated near-infared dyes

Haoran Wang,Ke Jiang,Jinhui Wu,Huanhuan Zhang,Yiqiao Hu

doi:10.14715/cmb/2018.64.10.11

Abstract

Near-Infrared (NIR) dyes, with improved tissue penetration, minimal invasiveness and high specificity, have gained great interests in diagnosing and treating tumors. However, the poor solubility in aqueous medium and low 1O2 quantum yields of NIR dyes restrict their application in PDT (photodynamic therapy) research. Herein, a novel nanosystem with modifying the NIR dyes and encapsulating perfluorocarbon is reported for improving the PDT effectiveness of NIR dyes. By adding the PEG2000-SH and the C13 carbon chain to a NIR representative dye IR780, the new formed material PEG-IR780-C13 shows good solubility in water. Then PFTBA was encapsulated into PEG-IR780-C13 to form a nanosystem (PFTBA@PEG-IR780-C13). When exposed to laser irradiation, the nanosystem showed enhanced production of 1O2 and significantly increased PDT both in vivo and in vitro. Therefore, this work provides an approach for design and application of NIR dyes.

Highlights

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), an emerging photochemistry-involved treatment process for tumor and other diseases [1,2,3]
We investigated the photodynamic effect of PFTBA@ PEG-IR780-C13 by evaluating 1O2 generation ability in vitro and in vivo
We showed that this new approach may provide a clue to achieve an encouraging PDT therapeutic outcomes of typically NIR dyes

Summary

Introduction

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), an emerging photochemistry-involved treatment process for tumor and other diseases [1,2,3]. After the encapsulation of PFTBA, the selfquenching concentration of photosensitizer increased (Supplement Figure 5), indicating the PFTBA@PEGIR780-C13 can reduce the self-photoquenching of NIR dye. We measured the fluorescence signal extent of PEG-IR780-C13 and PFTBA@PEG-IR780C13 (the concentration of PEG-IR780-C13=50ug/ml, PFTBA=1%, v/v %) by an 808nm laser irradiation for 10s intervals (Figure 2A) after mixing with SOSG.

Results

Conclusion