The high incidence and difficulties of treatment of cancer
have
always been a challenge for mankind. Two-photon photodynamic therapy
(TP-PDT) as a less invasive technique provides a new perspective for
tumor treatment due to its low-energy near-infrared excitation, high
targeting, and minor damage. At present, the emerging metal complexes
used as the photosensitizers (PSs) in TP-PDT have aroused great interest.
However, most metal complexes as PSs in TP-PDT still face some problems,
such as slow clearance, unsatisfactory two-photon absorption (TPA)
characteristics, high price, low reactivity, and poor solubility.
In this work, density functional theory and time-dependent density
functional theory were used to characterize the one/two-photon response,
solvation free energy, and lipophilicity of a series of novel PSs
applied in TP-PDT. The results suggest that based on complex 1, replacing Ru(II) center with Zn(II) (complex 2) can effectively prolong the triplet excited state lifetime while
reducing the cost and environmental pollution, and the azetidine heterospirocycles
were introduced into the ligand scaffold (complex 3),
which effectively reduced the vibration relaxation of the ligand group
and improved the water solubility; further, the addition of acetylenyl
groups subtly enhanced the light absorption and significantly improved
the two-photon response (complex 4). In addition, all
complexes met the requirement of a PS and could be used as potential
candidates for TP-PDT. In particular, complex 4 has the
advantages of high solvation free energy, a large TPA cross-section
(1413 GM), a long triplet state lifetime (671 μs), good chemical
reactivity, and low cost, and it is easy to be scavenged by organisms.
Overall, this contribution may provide an important clue to formulate
clear design principles for type I/II PSs and rational design of PSs
with high intersystem crossing rates, a long lifetime, and therapeutic
excitation wavelengths.