Toluidine blue O directly and photodynamically impairs the bioenergetics of liver mitochondria: a potential mechanism of hepatotoxicity

Imaging of mitochondria/lysosomes in live cells and C. elegans

“…13,[21][22][23][24][25][26] Phenothiazines are a well-known class of non-porphyrin photosensitizers with good photodynamic efficiency. [27][28][29][30] We envisaged that coupling these two moieties could yield a targeted mitochondrial-specific probe with preferential uptake in cancer cells and also provide us an effective theranostic entity. [31][32][33] Upon light irradiation, the photosensitizers convert molecular oxygen to singlet oxygen in its excited state, resulting in the formation of free radicals.…”