Can nanotechnology potentiate photodynamic therapy?

Ying-Ying Huang; Sulbha K Sharma; Tianhong Dai; Hoon Chung; Anastasia Yaroslavsky; Maria Garcia-Diaz; Julie Chang; Long Y Chiang; Michael R Hamblin

doi:10.1515/ntrev-2011-0005

Can nanotechnology potentiate photodynamic therapy?

Nanotechnol Rev. 2012 Mar;1(2):111-146. doi: 10.1515/ntrev-2011-0005.

Authors

Ying-Ying Huang¹, Sulbha K Sharma², Tianhong Dai³, Hoon Chung³, Anastasia Yaroslavsky⁴, Maria Garcia-Diaz⁵, Julie Chang⁶, Long Y Chiang⁷, Michael R Hamblin⁸

Affiliations

¹ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA ; Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ; Aesthetic and Plastic Center, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China.
² Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA.
³ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA ; Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA ; College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA ; Institut Químic de Sarrià, Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona 08017, Spain.
⁶ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA ; Department of Chemistry, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, USA.
⁸ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 40 Blossom St., Boston, MA 02114, USA ; Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) uses the combination of non-toxic dyes and harmless visible light to produce reactive oxygen species that can kill cancer cells and infectious microorganisms. Due to the tendency of most photosensitizers (PS) to be poorly soluble and to form nonphotoactive aggregates, drug-delivery vehicles have become of high importance. The nanotechnology revolution has provided many examples of nanoscale drug-delivery platforms that have been applied to PDT. These include liposomes, lipoplexes, nanoemulsions, micelles, polymer nanoparticles (degradable and nondegradable), and silica nanoparticles. In some cases (fullerenes and quantum dots), the actual nanoparticle itself is the PS. Targeting ligands such as antibodies and peptides can be used to increase specificity. Gold and silver nanoparticles can provide plasmonic enhancement of PDT. Two-photon excitation or optical upconversion can be used instead of one-photon excitation to increase tissue penetration at longer wavelengths. Finally, after sections on in vivo studies and nanotoxicology, we attempt to answer the title question, "can nano-technology potentiate PDT?"

Keywords: ORMOSIL; dendrimer; fullerene; graphene; lipoplex; lipoprotein; liposome; magnetic nanoparticle; micelle; nanocell; nanoparticle; polymeric nanoparticle; porphysome; quantum dot; single-walled carbon nanotube; two-photon excitation; upconversion.

Abstract

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