Synthesis, crystal structure and biological evaluation of thyroid cancer targeting photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy

With the increasing of thyroid cancer worldwide, there urgently demands new mild theranostic strategies for treatment of recurrence of thyroid cancer to overcome the side-effects of the clinical practices (131I). In this work, photodynamic therapy (PDT) was first explored for treatment of thyroid cancer by incorporating iodomethane choline onto the phthalocyanine through either axial or peripheral substitution. Due to the extraordinary nonaggregation properties in aqueous solution, the axial choline substituted SiPc 1 shows much higher singlet oxygen generation and fluorescence emission than ZnPc 2 and 3 with peripheral substituted cholines. Their photodynamic activities in different type of thyroid cancer cells were clearly compared, disclosing that SiPc 1 is the most promising candidate for PDT of thyroid cancer.