2017/05/26 by Bobo Gu, Wenbo Wu, Gaixia Xu +6 · 2 citations
Engineering · Medicine · Materials Science · #Nanoplatforms for cancer theranostics #Photodynamic Therapy Research Studies #Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
paper · doi:10.1002/adma.201701076
openalex publication_date 2017/05/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Two-photon photodynamic therapy (PDT) is able to offer precise 3D manipulation of treatment volumes, providing a target level that is unattainable with current therapeutic techniques. The advancement of this technique is greatly hampered by the availability of photosensitizers with large two-photon absorption (TPA) cross section, high reactive-oxygen-species (ROS) generation efficiency, and bright two-photon fluorescence. Here, an effective photosensitizer with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics is synthesized, characterized, and encapsulated into an amphiphilic block copolymer to form organic dots for two-photon PDT applications. The AIE dots possess large TPA cross section, high ROS generation efficiency, and excellent photostability and biocompatibility, which overcomes the limitations of many conventional two-photon photosensitizers. Outstanding therapeutic performance of the AIE dots in two-photon PDT is demonstrated using in vitro cancer cell ablation and in vivo brain-blood-vessel closure as examples. This shows therapy precision up to 5 µm under two-photon excitation.