We herein report a phosphoric-acid-substituted tetraphenylethene (T-P) capable of adapting its geometric configuration and biological activity to the microenvironment upon light irradiation for apoptosis modulation. Different from most ultraviolet-responsive isomerization, T-P undergoes cis-trans isomerization under visible light irradiation, which is biocompatible and thus photo-modulation is possible in living biosystems. By using alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and albumin as dual targets, T-P isomers display different protein binding selectivity, cancer-cell internalization efficiency and apoptosis-inducing ability. The proapoptotic activity was found to be kinetically controlled by the enzymatic reaction with ALP and regulated by co-existing albumin. Motivated by these findings, two-way modulation of proapoptotic effect and on-demand boosting anticancer efficacy were realized in vitro and in vivo using light and endogenous proteins as multiple non-invasive switching stimuli.
Keywords: apoptosis; cancer therapy; isomerization; protein interactions; tetraphenylethene derivative.
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