Photodynamic therapy (
PDT), using a combination of chemical
photosensitizers (PS) and light, has been successfully applied as a noninvasive therapeutic procedure to treat
tumors by inducing apoptosis or
necrosis of
cancer cells. However, most current clinically used PS have suffered from the instability in physiological conditions which lead to low
photodynamic therapy efficacy. Herein, a highly biocompatible
poly(dopamine) (PDA) nanoparticle conjugated with
Chlorin e6 (referenced as the PDA-Ce6
nanosphere) was designed as a nanotherapeutic agent to achieve simultaneous photodynamic/
photothermal therapy (
PDT/PTT). Compared to the free Ce6, the PDA-Ce6
nanosphere exhibited significantly higher
PDT efficacy against
tumor cells, because of the enhanced cellular uptake and subsequently greater
reactive oxygen species (ROS) production upon
laser irradiation at 670 nm. Meanwhile, the PDA-Ce6
nanosphere could be also used as a photoabsorbing agent for PTT, because of the excellent photothermal conversion ability of PDA nanoparticle under
laser irradiation at 808 nm. Moreover, our prepared
nanosphere had extremely low dark toxicity, while excellent
phototoxicity under the combination
laser irradiation of 670 and 808 nm, both in vitro and in vivo, compared to any single
laser irradiation alone. Therefore, our prepared PDA-Ce6
nanosphere could be applied as a very promising dual-modal phototherapeutic agent for enhanced
cancer therapy in future clinical applications.