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

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

83 Scopus citations

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 (1O 2). 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 T 1 weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) imaging, making them become a multifunctional platform for simultaneous PDT and bio-imaging.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)11910-11918
Number of pages9
JournalNanoscale
Volume5
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 7 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Materials Science(all)

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