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Updated: Jun 6, 2026
Photodynamic Therapy with Blended Conducting Polymer/Fullerene Nanoparticle Photosensitizers
Published on: October 28, 2015
Water-soluble and biocompatible sono/photosensitizer nanoparticles for enhanced cancer therapy
Yongde Meng1, Chunpu Zou, Ragupathy Madiyalakan
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Aims:
Most sono/photosensitizers of cancer sonodynamic/photodynamic therapy (SDT/PDT), such as hypocrellin SL052, are water-insoluble, therefore restricting their clinical applications. In this article, we present a water-soluble nanocarrier to load the SDT/PDT sensitizer SL052 with improved pharmacokinetics and therapeutic efficacy.
Materials & Methods:
Nanoclusters of polyvinylpyrrolidones with SL052 formed water-soluble nanoparticles (SL052-NPs) while retaining the chemical structure of SL052.
Results:
The experimental results show that SL052-NPs improve the drug's physicochemical properties and significantly enhance the efficacy of SL052 in terms of pharmacokinetics and cancer killing. Water-soluble SL052-NPs can be used to deliver the drug to deep cancer tissues. A potential benefit of SL052-NPs is that polyvinylpyrrolidones can help SL052 evade the reticuloendothelial system, thereby increasing circulation half-life and improving drug biodistribution.
Conclusion:
SL052-NPs greatly improved the physicochemical properties of SL052 without modifying its chemical structure, allowing for deep-site cancer drug delivery, imaging for diagnosis, and ultrasound or photocontrolled localized cancer therapy.
