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A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs

Conventional pharmacology lacks spatial and temporal selectivity in terms of drug action. This leads to unwanted side effects, such as damage to healthy cells, as well as other less obvious effects, such as environmental toxicity and the acquisition of resistance to drugs, especially antibiotics, by...

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Autores principales: Menéndez-Velázquez, Amador, García-Delgado, Ana Belén
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10253318/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37298355
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24119404
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author Menéndez-Velázquez, Amador
García-Delgado, Ana Belén
author_facet Menéndez-Velázquez, Amador
García-Delgado, Ana Belén
author_sort Menéndez-Velázquez, Amador
collection PubMed
description Conventional pharmacology lacks spatial and temporal selectivity in terms of drug action. This leads to unwanted side effects, such as damage to healthy cells, as well as other less obvious effects, such as environmental toxicity and the acquisition of resistance to drugs, especially antibiotics, by pathogenic microorganisms. Photopharmacology, based on the selective activation of drugs by light, can contribute to alleviating this serious problem. However, many of these photodrugs are activated by light in the UV–visible spectral range, which does not propagate through biological tissues. In this article, to overcome this problem, we propose a dual-spectral conversion technique, which simultaneously makes use of up-conversion (using rare earth elements) and down-shifting (using organic materials) techniques in order to modify the spectrum of light. Near-infrared light (980 nm), which penetrates tissue fairly well, can provide a “remote control” for drug activation. Once near-IR light is inside the body, it is up-converted to the UV–visible spectral range. Subsequently, this radiation is down-shifted in order to accurately adjust to the excitation wavelengths of light which can selectively activate hypothetical and specific photodrugs. In summary, this article presents, for the first time, a “dual tunable light source” which can penetrate into the human body and deliver light of specific wavelengths; thus, it can overcome one of the main limitations of photopharmacology. It opens up promising possibilities for the moving of photodrugs from the laboratory to the clinic.
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spelling pubmed-102533182023-06-10 A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs Menéndez-Velázquez, Amador García-Delgado, Ana Belén Int J Mol Sci Article Conventional pharmacology lacks spatial and temporal selectivity in terms of drug action. This leads to unwanted side effects, such as damage to healthy cells, as well as other less obvious effects, such as environmental toxicity and the acquisition of resistance to drugs, especially antibiotics, by pathogenic microorganisms. Photopharmacology, based on the selective activation of drugs by light, can contribute to alleviating this serious problem. However, many of these photodrugs are activated by light in the UV–visible spectral range, which does not propagate through biological tissues. In this article, to overcome this problem, we propose a dual-spectral conversion technique, which simultaneously makes use of up-conversion (using rare earth elements) and down-shifting (using organic materials) techniques in order to modify the spectrum of light. Near-infrared light (980 nm), which penetrates tissue fairly well, can provide a “remote control” for drug activation. Once near-IR light is inside the body, it is up-converted to the UV–visible spectral range. Subsequently, this radiation is down-shifted in order to accurately adjust to the excitation wavelengths of light which can selectively activate hypothetical and specific photodrugs. In summary, this article presents, for the first time, a “dual tunable light source” which can penetrate into the human body and deliver light of specific wavelengths; thus, it can overcome one of the main limitations of photopharmacology. It opens up promising possibilities for the moving of photodrugs from the laboratory to the clinic. MDPI 2023-05-28 /pmc/articles/PMC10253318/ /pubmed/37298355 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24119404 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Menéndez-Velázquez, Amador
García-Delgado, Ana Belén
A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs
title A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs
title_full A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs
title_fullStr A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs
title_full_unstemmed A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs
title_short A Novel Photopharmacological Tool: Dual-Step Luminescence for Biological Tissue Penetration of Light and the Selective Activation of Photodrugs
title_sort novel photopharmacological tool: dual-step luminescence for biological tissue penetration of light and the selective activation of photodrugs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10253318/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37298355
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24119404
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