Receptor selective ruthenium-somatostatin photosensitizer for cancer targeted photodynamic applications

Abstract

The efficient conjugation of a ruthenium complex and the peptide hormone somatostatin is presented. The resultant biohybrid offers valuable features for photodynamic therapy such as remarkable cellular selectivity, rapid cell uptake by receptor-mediated endocytosis, efficient generation of (1)O2 upon irradiation, potent phototoxicity as well as low cytotoxicity in the "off"-state.