A Red Light Activatable Multifunctional Prodrug for Image‐Guided Photodynamic Therapy and Cascaded Chemotherapy

A multifunctional prodrug, designated as TPP‐L‐GEM, is fabricated to realize image‐guided in situ tumor photodynamic therapy (PDT) with red light activatable chemotherapy. Gemcitabine is conjugated with a fluorescent photosensitizer, meso‐tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP), by a reactive oxygen species cleavable thioketal linker. Under the irradiation of low‐energy red light, TPP can generate singlet oxygen and damage tumor cells by photodynamic therapy. Simultaneously, the thioketal linkage can be cleaved by singlet oxygen and result in a cascaded gemcitabine release, causing sustained cell damage by chemotherapy. With the combination of PDT and cascaded chemotherapy, TPP‐L‐GEM shows significant tumor therapeutic efficacy in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the inherent fluorescent property of TPP endows the TPP‐L‐GEM prodrug with noninvasive drug tracking capability, which is favorable for image‐guided tumor therapy.