Abstract
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted tremendous attention in the antitumor and antimicrobial areas. To enhance the water solubility of photosensitizers and facilitate their accumulation in the tumor/infection site, polymeric materials are frequently explored as delivery systems, which are expected to show target and controllable activation of photosensitizers. This review introduces the smart polymeric delivery systems for the PDT of tumor and bacterial infections. In particular, strategies that are tumor/bacteria targeted or activatable by the tumor/bacteria microenvironment such as enzyme/pH/reactive oxygen species (ROS) are summarized. The similarities and differences of polymeric delivery systems in antitumor and antimicrobial PDT are compared. Finally, the potential challenges and perspectives of those polymeric delivery systems are discussed.
Highlights
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted intensive attention for the treatment of tumor and bacteria during recent years(Celli et al, 2010; Bugaj, 2011; Kamkaew et al, 2013; Lincoln et al, 2013; Tian et al, 2013)
This review introduces the smart polymeric delivery system for the PDT of tumor and bacterial infections
Due to the different structure of tumor and bacterial cells, the target point is different to some extent
Summary
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted intensive attention for the treatment of tumor and bacteria during recent years(Celli et al, 2010; Bugaj, 2011; Kamkaew et al, 2013; Lincoln et al, 2013; Tian et al, 2013). PDT has high spatiotemporal selectivity in triggering tumor cell death and can generate immune response (Wang et al, 2020), showing advantages over the traditional cancer therapies. PDT has been approved to treat some diseases in clinical trials, such as premalignant tumors, cutaneous malignant tumors, tumors of the head, neck, and oral cavity, lung, gastrointestinal, and other tumors (Brown et al, 2004), viral lesions, acne, gastric infection by Helicobacter pylori, and brain abcesses (Hamblin and Hasan, 2004). As the transition from triplet excited state (T1) to ground state is spin forbidden, this T1 state is relatively long-lived and can react with molecular oxygen. Concerning the reaction type between the T1 state and molecular oxygen, there are two possibilities. Electron transfer between the T1 state and molecular oxygen will initially produce a superoxide anion (O2−), and subsequently produce other
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