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Palladium porphyrin complexes for photodynamic cancer therapy: effect of porphyrin units and metal

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Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been extensively explored for malignant tissue treatment. In this work, we successfully synthesized and characterized a series of porphyrin compounds by connecting porphyrin units with alkyl chains, which were then coordinated with palladium to yield related metal complexes, named Pd-Monopor, Pd-Dipor, and Pd-Tripor, respectively. The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) of six porphyrin compounds was investigated by the dichlorofluorescein (DCFH) method. As expected, the palladium porphyrin complexes showed the higher efficiency of ROS generation relative to free base porphyrins, probably due to the heavy atom effect. Remarkably, the efficiency of ROS generation increased with the number of porphyrin units in the photosensitizers. The order of ROS generation efficiency of the synthesized porphyrins was Pd-Tripor > Tripor > Dipor > Pd-Monopor > Pd-Dipor > Monopor. MTT assay suggested the good biocompatibility of the synthesized photosensitizers in the dark. Upon light irradiation, the palladium porphyrin complex exhibited higher therapeutic activity than free base porphyrin. The half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of Tripor and Pd-Tripor under light irradiation was calculated to be 18.2 and 9.6 μM, respectively. The cellular uptake and subcellular localization experiments indicated that Tripor was mainly localized in the lysosomes of cancer cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Process of the Ministry of Education, Hubei Novel Reactor and Green Chemical Technology Key Laboratory, School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, China

    Jingran Deng, Haolan Li, Mengqian Yang & Fengshou Wu

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  1. Jingran Deng
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  2. Haolan Li
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  3. Mengqian Yang
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  4. Fengshou Wu
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Correspondence to Fengshou Wu.

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Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c9pp00363k

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Deng, J., Li, H., Yang, M. et al. Palladium porphyrin complexes for photodynamic cancer therapy: effect of porphyrin units and metal. Photochem Photobiol Sci 19, 905–912 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1039/c9pp00363k

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