Cancer is a challenging disease to treat, regarding treatment efficiency and side-effects. To overcome these problems, extensive studies are exploring therapies with reduced side-effects, such as photodynamic therapy (PDT). PDT has advantages over conventional therapies; however, its dependence on light limits it to treating tumors under the skin/on the outer lining of organs [1]. We developed new photosensitizers that can self-activate intracellularly with tumor selectivity based on chemiluminescent reactions involving a cancer marker. The photosensitizer is directly chemiexcited to a triplet excited state generating singlet oxygen, without an external light source. Thus, we aimed to develop self-activating photosensitizers which can be used for light-free photodynamic therapy, eliminating its light-related restrictions [2,3]. Cytotoxicity assays with breast and prostate cell lines showed that the novel photosensitizers possess significant toxicity toward tumor cells, while not affecting normal cells. Furthermore, we compared the activity of these compounds with reference chemotherapeutic drugs, finding higher cytotoxicity [3].
Supplementary Materials
The conference presented material is available at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/ECMC2022-13174/s1.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, L.P.d.S.; Funding acquisition, L.P.d.S.; Investigation, C.M.M. and P.G.-B.; Supervision, J.C.G.E.d.S. and L.P.d.S.; Visualization, C.M.M. and P.G.-B.; Writing—original draft, C.M.M.; Writing—review & editing, J.C.G.E.d.S. and L.P.d.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
The Portuguese “Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia” (FCT, Lisbon) is acknowledged for funding of project PTDC/QUI-QFI/2870/2020. Carla Magalhães acknowledges FCT for funding her PhD grant (SFRH/143211/2019). Luís Pinto da Silva also acknowledges funding from FCT (CEECINST/00069/2021).
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement
Not applicable.
Acknowledgments
The Laboratory of Computational Modelling of Environmental Pollutant-Human Interactions (LACOMEPHI) and the Materials Center of the University of Porto (CEMUP) are acknowledged.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
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