Amphiphilic Rhodamine Nano-assembly as a Type I Supramolecular Photosensitizer for Photodynamic Therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising clinical method for treating a wide range of cancers. Recently, PDT employing type I photosensitizers (PSs) has attracted considerable attention owing to the feasibility of efficient PDT under hypoxic conditions. Particularly, type I supramolecular PSs (SPSs) are promising candidates owing to their functional extensibility by facile hybridization. However, type I SPSs are rare, and the development strategy has not been established yet. In this work, we demonstrated that supramolecular assembly of a simple amphiphilic rhodamine 19 (Rh19-MA-C18) functioned as a type I SPS and exhibited significant PDT effect on cancer cells and cancer-bearing mice. This work demonstrates the potential of supramolecular nano-assembly composed of an amphiphilic rhodamine dye as an efficient type I SPS.