Water-soluble fullerenes prepared by using solubilizing agents based on natural products are promising photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy. Cyclodextrin, β-1,3-glucan, lysozyme, and liposomes can stably solubilize not only C60 and C70 , but also some C60 derivatives in water. To improve the solubilities of fullerenes, specific methods have been developed for each solubilizing agent. Water-soluble C60 and C70 exhibit photoinduced cytotoxicity under near-ultraviolet irradiation, but not at wavelengths over 600 nm, which are the appropriate wavelengths for photodynamic therapy. However, dyad complexes of solubilized C60 derivatives combined with light-harvesting antenna molecules improve the photoinduced cytotoxicities at wavelengths over 600 nm. Furthermore, controlling the fullerene and antenna molecule positions within the solubilizing agents affects the performance of the photosensitizer.
Keywords: energy transfer; fullerenes; host-guest systems; liposomes; photochemistry.
© 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.