Bacterial infections are closely related to the initiation of cancer, and the killing of cancer-related bacteria can greatly improve the therapeutic effect of cancer. Image-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT) can solve bacterial drug resistance, which has attracted wide attention as a non-invasive and safe cancer treatment method. In this study, we design and synthesis a new amphiphilic tetraphenylethylene-based photosensitizer TPETP-TG, and its compared compound TPETP-Me, for cancer cell ablation and bacteria killing. TPETP-TG bears the hydrophilic triethylene glycol (TG) tail and a positive pyridinium salt with a strong electron push–pull effect. It self-assembles nano-aggregation in aqueous solution, and emits a typical AIE characteristics fluorescence at 635 nm. The TPETP-TG aggregations show a good photostability and biocompatibility, and also a high reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation under the white light irradiation, which is superior to the control photosensitizer TPETP-Me. TPETP-TG selectively targets mitochondria in cancer cells, and makes it ablation under the white light irradiation. In addition, TPETP-TG is also successfully used for photodynamic killing E. coli and S. aureus at low working concentrations. Furthermore, the therapeutic experiments with bacterial-infected zebrafish imply that TPETP-TG effectively eliminates the bacteria and improves their survival rate under light irradiation.

细菌感染与癌症的发生密切相关，杀死与癌症相关的细菌可以大大提高癌症的治疗效果。图像引导光动力疗法（PDT）可以解决细菌耐药性问题，作为一种无创、安全的癌症治疗方法受到广泛关注。在这项研究中，我们设计并合成了一种新型的两亲性四苯基乙烯基光敏剂TPETP-TG及其对比化合物TPETP-Me，用于癌细胞消融和细菌杀灭。TPETP-TG带有亲水性三甘醇（TG）尾和具有强电子推拉效应的正吡啶盐。它在水溶液中自组装纳米聚集体，在635 nm处发出典型的AIE特征荧光。TPETP -TG聚集体表现出良好的光稳定性和生物相容性，并且在白光照射下产生高活性氧（ROS），优于对照光敏剂TPETP-Me。TPETP-TG选择性靶向癌细胞中的线粒体，使其在白光照射下消融。此外，TPETP-TG还成功用于光动力杀灭大肠杆菌和金黄色葡萄球菌在低工作浓度下。此外，对细菌感染斑马鱼的治疗实验表明，TPETP-TG可有效消除细菌并提高其在光照射下的存活率。