Photosensitizer-singlet oxygen sensor conjugated silica nanoparticles for photodynamic therapy and bioimaging

Intracellular singlet oxygen (¹O₂) generation and detection help optimize the outcome of photodynamic therapy (PDT). Theranostics programmed for on-demand phototriggered ¹O₂ release and bioimaging have great potential to transform PDT. We demonstrate an ultrasensitive fluorescence turn-on sensor-sensitizer-RGD peptide-silica nanoarchitecture and its ¹O₂ generation-releasing-storing-sensing properties at the single-particle level or in living cells. The sensor and sensitizer in the nanoarchitecture are an aminomethyl anthracene (AMA)-coumarin dyad and a porphyrin or CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs), respectively. The AMA in the dyad quantitatively quenches the fluorescence of coumarin by intramolecular electron transfer, the porphyrin or QD moiety generates ¹O_2, and the RGD peptide facilitates intracellular delivery. The small size, below 200 nm, as verified by scanning electron microscopy and differential light scattering measurements, of the architecture within the ¹O₂ diffusion length enables fast and efficient intracellular fluorescence switching by the tandem ultraviolet (UV)-visible or visible-near-infrared (NIR) photo-triggering. While the red emission and ¹O₂ generation by the porphyrin are continually turned on, the blue emission of coumarin is uncaged into 230-fold intensity enhancement by on-demand photo-triggering. The ¹O₂ production and release by the nanoarchitecture enable spectro-temporally controlled cell imaging and apoptotic cell death; the latter is verified from cytotoxic data under dark and phototriggering conditions. Furthermore, the bioimaging potential of the TCPP-based nanoarchitecture is examined in vivo in B6 mice.