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Updated: Jan 13, 2026
Anticancer Efficacy of Photodynamic Therapy with Lung Cancer-Targeted Nanoparticles
Published on: December 1, 2016
A hydroxyl radical-activated NIR-II hemicyanine photosensitizer for selective photodynamic cancer therapy
Wenwen Cao1, Fapu Wu1, Bingbing Zheng1
1Research Center for Analytical Sciences, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China. xionghu@nankai.edu.cn.
Abstract:
A water-soluble and heavy-atom-free hemicyanine photosensitizer, H-WBHcy, specifically activated by ˙OH (a tumor biomarker), was synthesized for the first time. H-WBHcy could sensitively respond to ˙OH (LOD = 8.7 nM), showing red-shifted absorption from 500 nm to 694/765 nm as well as fluorescence emission at 910 nm. Meanwhile, ˙OH was able to trigger the oxidized product of H-WBHcy to further produce 1O2 under 808 nm laser irradiation, which could significantly inhibit the growth of cancer cells. We believe this work provides a strategy for developing activatable near-infrared photosensitizers for precise photodynamic therapy.
