An Effective Supramolecular Approach to Boost the Photodynamic Therapy Efficacy of a Near-Infrared Activating Perylene Diimide-Based Photosensitizer

• Published in: ACS materials letters 2022-04, Vol.4 (4), p.657-664
• Main Authors: Li, Chengwei, Gao, Ya, Huang, Rong, Fang, Lei, Sun, Yanyan, Yang, Yuliang, Gou, Shaohua, Zhao, Jian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2639-4979; 2639-4979
• DOI: 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.1c00818

Perylene diimide (PDI) derivatives with outstanding photo-physicochemical properties hold significant promise for application in solar energy conversion, pollutant degradation, and disease diagnosis. However, the inherent characteristics of PDI molecules, including poor water solubility, short-wavelength absorption, and negligible singlet oxygen (1O2) generation capabilities, severely limit their application in photodynamic therapy (PDT). Here, a novel PDI-based photosensitizer was deliberately designed with the potential to solve these limitations. By facile modifications of a PDI molecule, we constructed an amphiphilic PDI-based compound (PDIPa) that can be self-assembled into a functional supramolecular photosensitizer (NanoPDIPa) with excellent water dispersity and intense near-infrared (NIR) absorbance. Remarkably, the intermolecular electronic coupling and interaction in NanoPDIPa can induce efficiency intersystem crossing (ISC) through the minimization of singlet–triplet energy gap (ΔE ST), a characteristic that is not possessed by the monomer, thus resulting in significant 1O2 production. The successful development of NanoPDIPa not only can enlarge the family of NIR-absorbing photosensitizers for potential PDT applications but also can provide a solution to overcome the limitations of clinically used photosensitizers.