An Urchin-Shaped Copper-Based Metalloporphyrin Nanosystem as a Sonosensitizer for Sonodynamic Therapy

Aiqing Ma; Hui Ran; Jiaxing Wang; Rui Ding; Chengyu Lu; Lanlan Liu; Yingmei Luo; Huaqing Chen; Ting Yin

doi:10.3390/nano12020209

An Urchin-Shaped Copper-Based Metalloporphyrin Nanosystem as a Sonosensitizer for Sonodynamic Therapy

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jan 10;12(2):209. doi: 10.3390/nano12020209.

Authors

Aiqing Ma¹, Hui Ran¹, Jiaxing Wang¹, Rui Ding¹, Chengyu Lu¹, Lanlan Liu², Yingmei Luo¹, Huaqing Chen³, Ting Yin¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Research and Development of Natural Drugs, School of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan 523808, China.
² Guangdong Key Laboratory of Nanomedicine, CAS-HK Joint Lab of Biomaterials, Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Nanoformulations, Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
³ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Gene and Antibody Therapy, Center for Biotechnology and Biomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, State Key Laboratory of Health Sciences and Technology, Institute of Biopharmaceutical and Health Engineering, Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China.

Abstract

Sonodynamic therapy (SDT), as a novel cancer therapy strategy, might be a promising approach due to the depth-penetration property in tissue. Sonosensitizers are the key element for efficient SDT. However, the development of sonosensitizers with strong sonosensitization efficacy is still a significant challenge. Herein, an urchin-shaped copper-based metalloporphyrin liposome nanosystem (FA-L-CuPP) is constructed and identified as an excellent sonosensitizer. Under ultrasound (US) irradiation, FA-L-CuPP can be highly excited to generate several reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as singlet oxygen (¹O₂) and free radicals (⋅OH). The molecular orbital distribution calculations reveal that a strong intramolecular charge transfer might occur in the CuPP complex under US irradiation, which could afford enough energy to the surrounding O₂ and H₂O to concert ¹O₂, O₂^- and ⋅OH. Working as "ammunitions", the largely produced ROS can kill 4T1 tumor cells, effectively inhibiting tumor growth. This work provides an urchin-shaped nanosonosensitizer based on a copper complex, which might provide an idea to design a novel sonosensitizer for noninvasive and precise SDT antitumor applications.

Keywords: copper-based metalloporphyrin; noninvasive therapy; sonodynamic therapy; sonosensitizer; urchin-shaped.