Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 1, 2025
Photodynamic Therapy with Blended Conducting Polymer/Fullerene Nanoparticle Photosensitizers
Published on: October 28, 2015
Dissolving Microneedle-Based Cascade-Activation Nanoplatform for Enhanced Photodynamic Therapy of Skin Cancer
Jinyuan Ma1,2, Zongguang Tai1,2, Ying Li1,2
1Shanghai Skin Disease Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
Purpose:
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been an attractive strategy for skin tumor treatment. However, the hypoxic microenvironment of solid tumors and further O2 consumption during PDT would diminish its therapeutic effect. Herein, we developed a strategy using the combination of PDT and hypoxia-activated bioreductive drug tirapazamine (TPZ).
Methods:
TPZ was linked to DSPE-PEG-NHS forming DSPE-PEG-TPZ to solve leakage of water-soluble TPZ and serve as an antitumor agent and monomer molecule further forming the micellar. Chlorin e6 (Ce6) was loaded in DSPE-PEG-TPZ forming DSPE-PEG-TPZ@Ce6 (DPTC). To further improve tumor infiltration and accumulation, hyaluronic acid was adopted to make DPTC-containing microneedles (DPTC-MNs).
Results:
Both in vitro and in vivo studies consistently demonstrated the synergistic antitumor effect of photodynamic therapy and TPZ achieved by DPTC-MNs. With laser irradiation, overexpressions of PDT tolerance factors NQO1 and HIF-1α were inhibited by this PDT process.
Conclusion:
The synergistic effect of PDT and TPZ significantly improved the performance of DPTC-MNs in the treatment of melanoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and has good biocompatibility.
