Silica nanoparticles functionalized with porphyrins and analogs for biomedical studies

abstract

This review focus on the preparation of silica nanoparticles functionalized with porphyrins and related compounds. It is aimed to highlight their features as photosensitizers in the area of photodynamic therapy. In this field, photosensitizers have been covalently and non-covalently linked to silica nanoparticles, in order to study their photophysical and biological properties. Another fascinating scenario for photosensitizer-silica nanoparticles hybrids involves the possibility of including metal cores for conditioning the uptake in the target cells, allowing most of the times the combination of therapies and in certain conditions to facilitate the removal and reutilization of the photosensitizer in environmental applications.

keywords

PHOTODYNAMIC THERAPY; MESOPOROUS-SILICA; DRUG-DELIVERY; INTRACELLULAR DELIVERY; OPTICAL-PROPERTIES; CONTROLLED-RELEASE; SIZE; PHOTOSENSITIZER; NANOCARRIERS; MOLECULES

subject category

Chemistry

authors

Figueira, F; Cavaleiro, JAS; Tome, JPC

our authors

acknowledgements

Thanks are due to University of Aveiro, FCT (Portugal) and FEDER for funding the Organic Chemistry Research Unit (QOPNA) and grants PTDC/QUI/65228/2006 and PTDC/CTM/101538/2008 to J. Tome. F. Figueira also thanks FCT for his PhD fellowship SFRH/BD/46788/2008.

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