Multifunctionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles for the in vitro treatment of retinoblastoma: Drug delivery, one and two-photon photodynamic therapy

Abstract In this work, we focused on mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) for one photon excitated photodynamic therapy (OPE-PDT) combined with drug delivery and carbohydrate targeting applied on retinoblastoma, a rare disease of childhood. We demonstrate that bitherapy (camptothecin delivery and photodynamic therapy) performed with MSN on retinoblastoma cancer cells was efficient in inducing cancer cell death. Alternatively MSN designed for two-photon excited photodynamic therapy (TPE-PDT) were also studied and irradiation at low fluence efficiently killed retinoblastoma cancer cells.