The exploitation of effective strategies to develop materials bearing deep tissue focal fluorescence imaging capacity and excellent reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation ability is of great interest to address the high-priority demand of photodynamic therapy (PDT). Therefore, we use a rational strategy to fabricate a two-photon-active metal-organic framework via a click reaction (PCN-58-Ps). Moreover, PCN-58-Ps is capped with hyaluronic acid through coordination to obtain cancer cell-specific targeting properties. As a result, the optimized composite PCN-58-Ps-HA exhibits considerable two-photon activity (upon laser excitation at a wavelength of 910 nm) and excellent light-triggered ROS (1O2 and O2•-) generation ability. In summary, the interplay of these two critical factors within the PCN-58-Ps-HA framework gives rise to near-infrared light-activated two-photon PDT for deep tissue cancer imaging and treatment, which has great potential for future clinical applications.
Keywords: PDT; cancer imaging and treatment; metal−organic framework; two-photon.