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Self‐Supplying O 2 through the Catalase‐Like Activity of Gold Nanoclusters for Photodynamic Therapy against Hypoxic Cancer Cells
Author(s) -
Liu ChingPing,
Wu TeHaw,
Liu ChiaYeh,
Chen KuanChung,
Chen YuXing,
Chen GinShin,
Lin ShuYi
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201700278
Subject(s) - nanoclusters , catalase , photodynamic therapy , protonation , chemistry , cancer cell , combinatorial chemistry , hypoxia (environmental) , cancer therapy , oxygen , biophysics , nanotechnology , materials science , cancer , biochemistry , enzyme , organic chemistry , ion , biology , genetics
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) typically involves oxygen (O 2 ) consumption and therefore suffers from greatly limited anticancer therapeutic efficacy in tumor hypoxia. Here, it is reported for the first time that amine‐terminated, PAMAM dendrimer‐encapsulated gold nanoclusters (AuNCs‐NH 2 ) can produce O 2 for PDT via their intrinsic catalase‐like activity. The AuNCs‐NH 2 not only show optimum H 2 O 2 consumption via the catalase‐like activity over the physiological pH range (i.e., pH 4.8–7.4), but also extend such activity to acidic conditions. The possible mechanism is deduced from that the enriched tertiary amines of dendrimers are easily protonated in acidic solutions to facilitate the preadsorption of OH on the metal surface, thereby favorably triggering the catalase‐like reaction. By taking advantage of the exciting feature on AuNCs‐NH 2 , the possibility to supply O 2 via the catalase‐like activity of AuNCs‐NH 2 for PDT against hypoxia of cancer cells was further studied. This proof‐of‐concept study provides a simple way to combine current O 2 ‐dependent cancer therapy of PDT to overcome cancer cell hypoxia, thus achieving more effective anticancer treatments.