A new near infrared photosensitizing nanoplatform containing blue-emitting up-conversion nanoparticles and hypocrellin A for photodynamic therapy of cancer cells

Shan Jin; Liangjun Zhou; Zhanjun Gu; Gan Tian; Liang Yan; Wenlu Ren; Wenyan Yin; Xiaodong Liu; Xiao Zhang; Zhongbo Hu; Yuliang Zhao

doi:10.1039/C3NR03515H

A new near infrared photosensitizing nanoplatform containing blue-emitting up-conversion nanoparticles and hypocrellin A for photodynamic therapy of cancer cells†

Shan Jin,‡^ac Liangjun Zhou,‡^ac Zhanjun Gu,*^a Gan Tian,^ad Liang Yan,^a Wenlu Ren,^a Wenyan Yin,^a Xiaodong Liu,^ae Xiao Zhang,^ab Zhongbo Hu^c and Yuliang Zhao*^ab

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* Corresponding authors

^a Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China
E-mail: zjgu@ihep.ac.cn, zhaoyuliang@ihep.ac.cn

^b Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanosciences and Technology of China, Beijing, China

^c College of Materials Science and Opto-electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China

^d College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, P. R. China

^e College of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, P. R. China

Abstract

The utilization of up-conversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) for photodynamic therapy (PDT) has gained significant interest due to their unique ability to convert near infrared light to UV/visible light. Previous work mainly focused on the fabrication of green and red emitting UCNPs to load photosensitizers (PSs) for PDT. In this work, we firstly developed a new multifunctional nanoplatform combining blue-emitting UCNPs with blue-light excited PS (hypocrellin A, HA) as a NIR photosensitizing nanoplatform for PDT of cancer cells. Tween 20 coated NaYbF₄:Tm, Gd@NaGdF₄ UCNPs (Tween 20-UCNPs) with strong blue up-conversion luminescence and good water dispersibility were prepared for use as PS carriers. The blue emission band matched well with the efficient absorption band of HA, thereby facilitating the resonance energy transfer from UCNPs to HA and then activating HA to produce singlet oxygen (¹O₂). The in vitro study showed that these Tween 20-UCNPs@HA complexes could efficiently produce ¹O₂ to kill cancer cells under 980 nm NIR excitation. Moreover, these Gd³⁺ and Yb³⁺ containing nanoparticles also exhibited positive contrast effects in both T₁ weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) imaging, making them become a multifunctional platform for simultaneous PDT and bio-imaging.

Nanoscale

A new near infrared photosensitizing nanoplatform containing blue-emitting up-conversion nanoparticles and hypocrellin A for photodynamic therapy of cancer cells†

Abstract

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A new near infrared photosensitizing nanoplatform containing blue-emitting up-conversion nanoparticles and hypocrellin A for photodynamic therapy of cancer cells

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