Cancer Photodynamic Therapy Enabled by Water-Soluble Chlorophyll Protein

作者：Lixin Liang, Wenjun Wang, Manjia Li, Yingjie Xu, Zhangdi Lu, Jingjing Wei, Ben Zhong Tang, Fei Sun, Rongbiao Tong · 发表于：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1021/acsami.5c01280 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Nanoplatforms for cancer theranostics、Photodynamic Therapy Research Studies、Cancer Research and Treatments

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been utilized to treat various malignant cancers for more than a century. However, many photosensitizers (e.g., derivatives of porphyrins, chlorins, etc.) central to PDT are still suffering from limitations such as water insolubility, dark toxicity, photo/thermal-instability, difficult synthesis/preparation, and poor tumor selectivity. Numerous effective strategies include designing new synthetic photosensitizers by exploiting heavy atom effect, aggregation-induced emission effect (AIE), and electronic/energy effects (donor–acceptor, and Förster resonance energy transfer: FRET), and the linkage of activatable and targeting molecules has been developed to address one or more of these limitations. However, these structural modifications of photosensitizing organic molecules are synthetically challenging and unpredictable in terms of efficacy versus toxicity. Herein, we report a new and simple strategy for effective PDT by combining natural spinach-derived chlorophylls (photosensitizer) with natural water-soluble chlorophyll proteins (WSCPs) derived originally from plants and produced heterologously by bacteria ( E. coli ). The recombinant WSCPs (chlorophyll-WSCP) are tetrameric and stable under air/thermal conditions and importantly can produce highly reactive singlet oxygen under red/far-red light irradiation to induce cancer cell death. Our in vivo mouse model studies (melanoma xenografts) furth...