Issue 33, 2022

Activatable photothermal agents with target-initiated large spectral separation for highly effective reduction of side effects

Abstract

Photothermal agents (PTAs) with minimized side effects are critical for transforming cancer photothermal therapy (PTT) into clinical applications. However, most currently available PTAs lack true selective activation to reduce side effects because of heavy spectral overlap between photothermal agents and their corresponding products. This study reports the construction of activatable PTAs with target-initiated large spectral separation for highly effective reduction of side effects. Such designed probes involve two H2O2-activatable PTAs, aza-BOD-B1 (single activatable site) and aza-BOD-B2 (multiple activatable site). After interacting with H2O2, aza-BOD-B1 only displays a mild absorption redshift (60 nm) from 750 nm to 810 nm with serious spectral overlap, resulting in a mild photothermal effect on normal tissues upon 808 nm light irradiation. In contrast, aza-BOD-B2 displays a large absorption spectral separation (150 nm) from 660 nm to 810 nm, achieving true selective activation to minimize side effects during PTT of cancer. Besides, in vitro and in vivo investigations demonstrated that aza-BOD-B2 can specifically induce photothermal ablation of cancer cells and tumors while leaving normal sites undamaged, whereas aza-BOD-B1 exhibits undesirable side effects on normal cells. Our study provides a practical solution to the problem of undesired side effects of phototherapy, an advance in precision medicine.

Graphical abstract: Activatable photothermal agents with target-initiated large spectral separation for highly effective reduction of side effects

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
02 May 2022
Accepted
05 Jul 2022
First published
07 Jul 2022
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2022,13, 9525-9530

Activatable photothermal agents with target-initiated large spectral separation for highly effective reduction of side effects

J. Sun, N. Cheng, K. Yin, R. Wang, T. Zhu, J. Gao, X. Dong, C. Dong, X. Gu and C. Zhao, Chem. Sci., 2022, 13, 9525 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC02467E

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