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

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