Photoactivatable Organic Semiconducting Pro-nanoenzymes

J Am Chem Soc. 2019 Mar 6;141(9):4073-4079. doi: 10.1021/jacs.8b13507. Epub 2019 Feb 20.

Abstract

Therapeutic enzymes hold great promise for cancer therapy; however, in vivo remote control of enzymatic activity to improve their therapeutic specificity remains challenging. This study reports the development of an organic semiconducting pro-nanoenzyme (OSPE) with a photoactivatable feature for metastasis-inhibited cancer therapy. Upon near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation, this pro-nanoenzyme not only generates cytotoxic singlet oxygen (1O2) for photodynamic therapy (PDT), but also triggers a spontaneous cascade reaction to induce the degradation of ribonucleic acid (RNA) specifically in tumor microenvironment. More importantly, OSPE-mediated RNA degradation is found to downregulate the expression of metastasis-related proteins, contributing to the inhibition of metastasis after treatment. Such a photoactivated and cancer-specific synergistic therapeutic action of OSPE enables complete inhibition of tumor growth and lung metastasis in mouse xenograft model, which is not possible for the counterpart PDT nanoagent. Thus, our study proposes a phototherapeutic-proenzyme approach toward complete-remission cancer therapy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antineoplastic Agents / chemical synthesis
  • Antineoplastic Agents / chemistry
  • Antineoplastic Agents / pharmacology*
  • Boronic Acids / chemistry
  • Boronic Acids / pharmacology*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Proliferation / drug effects
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Infrared Rays
  • Mammary Neoplasms, Experimental / drug therapy*
  • Mammary Neoplasms, Experimental / pathology
  • Mice
  • Molecular Structure
  • Nanoparticles / chemistry*
  • Optical Imaging
  • Particle Size
  • Photochemical Processes
  • Photochemotherapy*
  • Photosensitizing Agents / chemical synthesis
  • Photosensitizing Agents / chemistry
  • Photosensitizing Agents / pharmacology*
  • Semiconductors
  • Singlet Oxygen / chemistry
  • Singlet Oxygen / pharmacology

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Boronic Acids
  • Photosensitizing Agents
  • Singlet Oxygen
  • benzeneboronic acid