Nanocarrier-mediated photodynamic therapy (PDT), which involves the systemic delivery of photosensitizers (PSs) into tumor tissue and tumor cells, has emerged as an attractive treatment for cancer. However, insufficient PS release limits intracellular cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, which has become a major obstacle to improving the PDT therapeutic efficacy. Herein, a novel hyperbranched polyphosphoester (hbPPE) containing numerous acetal bonds (S-hbPPE/Ce6) was explored as a chlorin e6 (Ce6) nanocarrier for PDT. S-hbPPE/Ce6 with a branched topological structure efficiently encapsulated Ce6 and then significantly enhanced its internalization by tumor cells. Subsequently, the endo-/lysosomal acid microenvironment rapidly cleaved the acetal linkage of S-hbPPE and destroyed the nanostructure of S-hbPPE/Ce6, resulting in increased Ce6 release and obviously elevated the intracellular ROS generation under illumination. Therefore, treatment with S-hbPPE/Ce6 noticeably enhanced the PDT therapeutic efficacy, indicating that such a pH-sensitive hbPPE nanocarrier has great potential to improve the PDT therapeutic efficacy for cancer therapy.

Keywords: activatable PDT; hyperbranched polyphosphoester; pH-sensitive; pancreatic cancer; photodynamic therapy.