Novel mitochondrial-targeted thiadiazolo[3,4-g]quinoxaline dyes as efficient photosensitizers for ultra-low dose operable photodynamic therapy

Xianqiang Li; Li-Peng Zhang; Lin Kang; Yuxia Zhao

doi:10.1039/c9cc06271h

Novel mitochondrial-targeted thiadiazolo[3,4-g]quinoxaline dyes as efficient photosensitizers for ultra-low dose operable photodynamic therapy

Chem Commun (Camb). 2019 Sep 28;55(76):11390-11393. doi: 10.1039/c9cc06271h. Epub 2019 Sep 4.

Authors

Xianqiang Li¹, Li-Peng Zhang², Lin Kang¹, Yuxia Zhao²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Photochemical Conversion and Optoelectronic Materials, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 29 Zhongguancun East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100190, China. lipzhang@mail.ipc.ac.cn yuxia.zhao@mail.ipc.ac.cn and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China.
² Key Laboratory of Photochemical Conversion and Optoelectronic Materials, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 29 Zhongguancun East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100190, China. lipzhang@mail.ipc.ac.cn yuxia.zhao@mail.ipc.ac.cn.

PMID: 31482885
DOI: 10.1039/c9cc06271h

Abstract

Two novel thiadiazolo[3,4-g]quinoxaline (TQ) photosensitizers (PSs), TQs-3 and TQs-4, were designed and synthesized. Both of them presented ultra-high singlet oxygen quantum yields under red light irradiation. By carrying out in vitro photodynamic therapy (PDT) experiments using TQs-4 loaded nanoparticles (TQs-4 NPs) to treat three kinds of tumor cell lines: 4T1, HeLa and MCF-7 cells, it was demonstrated that TQs-4 NPs had outstanding PDT efficacies. An ultra-low dose of TQs-4 (0.14 μg mL^-1) can realize the death of more than 90% HeLa cells (635 nm, 60 mW cm^-2, 10 min), which indicated that TQs-4 show promising potential as a novel PS for PDT applications.