Pure Organic AIE Nanoscintillator for X‐ray Mediated Type I and Type II Photodynamic Therapy

Abstract

Abstract X‐ray induced photodynamic therapy (X‐PDT) circumvents the poor penetration depth of conventional PDT with minimal radio‐resistance generation. However, conventional X‐PDT typically requires inorganic scintillators as energy transducers to excite neighboring photosensitizers (PSs) to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). Herein, a pure organic aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) nanoscintillator (TBDCR NPs) that can massively generate both type I and type II ROS under direct X‐ray irradiation is reported for hypoxia‐tolerant X‐PDT. Heteroatoms are introduced to enhance X‐ray harvesting and ROS generation ability, and AIE‐active TBDCR exhibits aggregation‐enhanced ROS especially less oxygen‐dependent hydroxyl radical (HO•−, type I) generation ability. TBDCR NPs with a distinctive PEG crystalline shell to provide a rigid intraparticle microenvironment show further enhanced ROS generation. Intriguingly, TBDCR NPs show bright near‐infrared fluorescence and massive singlet oxygen and HO•− generation under direct X‐ray irradiation, which demonstrate excellent antitumor X‐PDT performance both in vitro and in vivo. To the best of knowledge, this is the first pure organic PS capable of generating both 1O2 and radicals (HO•−) in response to direct X‐ray irradiation, which shall provide new insights for designing organic scintillators with excellent X‐ray harvesting and predominant free radical generation for efficient X‐PDT.

Keywords

• aggregation‐induced emission
• organic scintillators
• photodynamic therapy
• radiotherapy
• X‐ray induced photodynamic therapy (X‐PDT)