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ChemComm
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DOI: 10.1039/C6CC09473B
COMMUNICATION
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to clarify the role of O2 in cell death. In the presence of NAC, Synergetic Innovation Center for Organic Electronics and
the unobservable apoptotic fluorescence reflected an efficient Information Displays, the Natural Science Foundation of
1
inhibition of cell death, indicating that the generated O2 from Jiangsu Province of China (No. BZ2010043, NY211003,
DBA with the assistance of TPE was responsible for the cell BM2012010), the Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices
death. The above results verify that DBA is superior to TMPyP4 and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province
as efficient TP-PS for TP-PDT on cancer cells.
(GD201603).
To elucidate the apoptosis pathways of DBA, western blotting
assay was utilized to monitor the caspase activity of the
apoptotic HeLa cell lysates. As known, deleterious caspase-3 is
mitochondria-mediated caspase and its activation is
Notes and references
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Cancer, 2003, 3, 380; (b) J. P. Celli, B. Q. Spring, I. Rizvi, C. L.
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considered to be
a
commitment to cell death.21 Once
activated, the caspase-3 is responsible for the cleavage of
downstream poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) that
ultimately leads to cell death.9 As shown in Fig.3c, distinct
changes were detected in the expression of caspase-3, PARP,
and cleaved PARP of the cells with different treatment. A
dramatic activation of caspase-3 was observed upon treatment
with the DBA, whereas low/no caspase-3 activation was
observed with TMPyP4, indicating DBA benefiting from the
intrinsic mitochondrial-targeting is considerably superior to
TMPyP4 for activation of caspase-3. Then the clear appearance
of cleaved PARP bands in DBA stained Hela cell lysates further
demonstrated that the superior TP-PDT capability of DBA is
associated with caspase-3 pathway. Based on above results, a
schematic of mitochondrial apoptosis model through caspase-
3 pathway was presented in Fig.3d. Upon receiving an
apoptotic 1O2 stimulus generated in mitochondria, cytochrome
c is released from the intermembrane space of mitochondria
into the cytoplasm. Then cytchrome c in cytoplasm executes a
series of functions to recruit and to facilitate downstream
activation of caspase-3, which subsequently results in the
cleavage of PARP and final cell apoptosis. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first report of mitochondrial apoptosis-
mediated TP-PDT using such purely organic small molecules.
In conclusion, our experimental and theoretical investigation
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on inner salt-shaped small molecule demonstrates
a
convenient and effective approach to achieve synthetic small
molecular TP-PS with remarkably enhanced δ, high 1O2
quantum yield and fascinating mitochondrial-targeting ability,
13. D. Beljonne, W. Wenseleers, E. Zojer, Z. Shuai, H. Vogel, S. J. K.
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versatile TP-absorbing small molecule for various applications,
especially in biomedical fields. Meanwhile, our results present
the first demonstration of highly efficient mitochondrial-
targeting TP-PDT via intrinsic apoptosis pathway, moving an
important step forward to the understanding of TP-PDT in
future cell biology and clinical theranostic. Importantly, the
amino and carboxyl group (that are ubiquitous in living
organisms) within DBA makes it a promising parent molecule
for further modification toward stimulus-cleavable segments
(e.g. pH, reactive oxygen species and enzyme) in the
development of novel TP-related smart diagnostic or
therapeutic applications.
20. H. Dummin, T. Cernay and H. W. Zimmermann, J. Photochem.
Photobiol., B, 1997, 37, 219.
21. E. Kavanagh, J. Rodhe, M. A. Burguillos, J. L. Venero and B.
Joseph, Cell Death Dis., 2014, 5, e1565.
This work was financially supported by the National Basic
Research Program of China (No. 2012CB933301), the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21674048,
21574064, 61378081, 11404219, 61136003, and 61505076),
4 | J. Name., 2012, 00, 1-3
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