Novel zinc(ii) phthalocyanine nanoparticles as a diagnosis–treatment nanoprobe for photoacoustic-imaging-guided synergistic photothermal/photodynamic-enhanced cancer therapy

Abstract

In this work, novel zinc(II) phthalocyanine nanoparticles (ZnPcNPs) have been developed and verified to be a promising PTT agent in the NIR-I range. Owing to their superior photostability, ZnPcNPs possess a high PCE of 30.01% under 660 nm NIR-I laser exposure. The ZnPcNPs, which show strong absorption in NIR-I biowindow, photothermal-enhanced cell death and single oxygen formation ability, can function as an efficient diagnosis–treatment nanoprobe, thus accelerating the death of malignant breast cancer cells. In vitro and in vivo findings verify that the ZnPcNPs exhibit suitable biosafety, superior photothermal therapeutic efficacy, and outstanding PA imaging performance. Overall, ZnPcNP-mediated photothermal-enhanced PDT can be used for synergistic bimodal theranostics in future biomedical uses.