Bypassing Ca Influx for Antimetastasis Photodynamic Therapy via Robust Nucleus-Targeted Near-Infrared Cyanines.

Hypoxia-induced tumor metastasis severely hinders the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in cancer treatment. Current strategies predominantly offer palliative suppression of the HIF-1α pathway, emphasizing the urgent need for innovative PDT approaches to prevent metastasis from the outset. Our study revealed that typical PDT triggers an increase in cytoplasmic Ca levels, activating HIF-1α, and that reducing Ca levels can, in turn, mitigate metastasis.

Insight into the spatial interaction of D-π-A bridge derived cyanines and nitroreductase for fluorescent cancer hypoxia detection.

Nitroreductase (NTR) detection in tumor is critical because NTR level is correlated with hypoxia degree and cancer prognosis. With the feature of high sensitivity and selectivity, fluorescence organic probes for NTR detection exhibited a promising future for tumor hypoxia detection. However, the discovery and design of such probes have been impeded due to the lack of the understanding of spatial match and mismatch of these probes with NTR.