Rhodium Nanoparticles as a Novel Photosensitizing Agent in Photodynamic Therapy against Cancer

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising alter-native treatment for different types of cancer due to its highselectivity, which prevents healthy tissues from being dam-aged. The use of nanomaterials in PDT has several advantag-es over classical photosensitizing agents, due to their uniqueproperties and their capacity for functionalization. Especiallyinteresting is the use of metallic nanoparticles, which are ca-pable of absorbing electromagnetic radiation and eithertransferring this energy to oxygen molecules for the genera-tion of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or dissipating it asheat. Although previous reports have demonstrated the ca-pacity of Rh derivatives to serve as anti-tumor drugs, to thebest of our knowledge there have been no studies on thepotential use of small-sized Rh nanoparticles as photosensi-tizers in PDT. In this study, 5 nm Rh nanoparticles have beensynthesized and their potential in PDT has been evaluated.The results show that treatment with Rh nanoparticles fol-lowed by NIR irradiation induces apoptosis in cancer cellsthrough a p53-independent mechanism.