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Updated: Oct 9, 2025

Photodynamic Therapy with Blended Conducting Polymer/Fullerene Nanoparticle Photosensitizers
Published on: October 28, 2015
A self-assembled subphthalocyanine-based nanophotosensitiser for photodynamic therapy
Nicolás M Casellas1,2, Gaole Dai3, Evelyn Y Xue3
1Department of Organic Chemistry and Institute for Advanced Research in Chemical Sciences (IadChem), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Calle Francisco Tomás y Valiente, 7, Madrid 28049, Spain. tomas.torres@uam.es.
Abstract:
A subphthalocyanine substituted with nine tetra(ethylene glycol) chains on the periphery has been synthesised. This novel amphiphilic and cone-shaped compound can self-assemble in water into spherical nanoparticles with a hydrodynamic diameter of 154 nm. These nanoparticles can be taken up readily by cancer cells and localised predominately in lysosomes where they disassemble gradually, leading to activation in fluorescence emission and, photocytotoxicity, showing IC50 values of as low as 1.2 μM.

