Synthesis of PSMA-targeted 131- and 152-substituted chlorin e6 derivatives and their biological properties

Prostate cancer is an extremely common cancer among older men. Conventional chemotherapy has proven to be not effective enough in battling it due to its high systemic toxicity and low selectivity. An alternative method of cancer treatment known as photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been shown to be effective. It is not without its faults either: one of the issues it’s been known to have is the insufficient selectivity of photosensitizer accumulation in tumor tissues. Recent studies, however, seem to indicate that introducing a PSMA-targeted moiety into photosensitizer might prove to be a solution to this problem. The present paper is concerned with synthesis of PSMA-targeted 131- and 152-substituted chlorin e6 conjugates and their biological characteristics. Our data suggests that the developed conjugates show potential as targeted agents for photodynamic therapy.