Smart Polymeric Delivery System for Antitumor and Antimicrobial Photodynamic Therapy

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted tremendous attention in the antitumor and antimicrobial areas. To enhance the water solubility of photosensitizers and facilitate their accumulation in the tumor/infection site, polymeric materials are frequently explored as delivery systems, which are expected to show target and controllable activation of photosensitizers. This review introduces the smart polymeric delivery systems for the PDT of tumor and bacterial infections. In particular, strategies that are tumor/bacteria targeted or activatable by the tumor/bacteria microenvironment such as enzyme/pH/reactive oxygen species (ROS) are summarized. The similarities and differences of polymeric delivery systems in antitumor and antimicrobial PDT are compared. Finally, the potential challenges and perspectives of those polymeric delivery systems are discussed.

Application of Fullerenes as Photosensitizers for Antimicrobial Photodynamic Inactivation: A Review

“…In the past few decades, the overuse of antibiotics has brought about the emergence of super bacteria with multidrug resistance, posing tremendous challenges to the treatment of bacterial infections ( Prestinaci et al, 2015 ; Willyard, 2017 ; Rawson et al, 2021 ; Varela et al, 2021 ). Antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation (aPDI) is a newly emerged treatment approach that can effectively address the issues of multidrug resistance ( Hu et al, 2018 ; Blum et al, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2021 ). Up till now, no resistance against aPDI has been reported in bacteria even after 20 successive bactericidal cycles ( Giuliani et al, 2010 ; Hamblin, 2016 , 2018 ; Al-Mutairi et al, 2018 ; Pieranski et al, 2020 ; Wozniak et al, 2021 ).…”

Preparation of polycation with hydroxyls for enhanced delivery of miRNA in osteosarcoma therapy

“…OS732 cells were seeded into 96-well plates at a density of 8 × 10 3 per well and incubated for 24 h. The PGEA-2/miR-NC complexes (N/P ratio = 10), PGEA-2/miR-223 complexes (N/P ratio = 10), or PEI/miR-223 complexes (N/P ratio = 5) containing 1 μg miR-223 was added into the wells and incubated for 6 h. Cell viability was measured at 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h with CCK8 to evaluate cell proliferation capability. 23 Cells without specific treatments were in the control group.…”

“…Polycations are positively charged vectors, which can protect condensed nucleic acids from degradation and help them for cell uptake. [19][20][21][22][23] Among the positively charged vectors, ethanolamine (EA)-modified poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (PGEA) is a kind of promising gene vector with abundant hydroxyl groups for low toxicity and high transfection efficiency. 18,[24][25][26][27] Moreover, the hydroxyl-rich polycationic vector exhibited similar hydration ability as ethylene glycol units in typical PEGylation nanoparticles, which can hinder protein adsorption and subsequent clearance by the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS).…”

Bacteria−Based Synergistic Therapy in the Backdrop of Synthetic Biology

“…Besides the synergistic reaction with the aforementioned treatments, bacteria have gained attention because of the advantage of intratumor colonization ( 66 ). Although facultative or obligate anaerobic bacteria have shown prime tumor colonization ability and are considered to be natural tumor-targeting carriers, the tumor-targeting ability and therapeutic safety of bacteria rarely go hand in hand ( 9 , 67 , 68 ).…”