Photodynamic therapy and gene therapy using dendrimer

Recently, we have reported ionic dendrimer porphyrin as an efficient photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy. In present work, novel poly(benzyl ether) dendrimer, which have phthalocyanine as a core unit, were synthesized as potential candidates of photosensitizer. The dendrimer exhibited large absorption bands at quite longer wavelength region than that of previously reported dendrimer porphyrin, and formed uniform micelle when the dendrimers mixed with same charge ratio of PEG-PLL block copolymer in 10 mM of PBS. On the other hand, we newly designed ternary complex of dendrimer phthalocyanine with plasmid DNA and cationic polymers to evaluate its DNA transfection efficacy. The result of in vitro and in vivo evaluation of PDT effect and DNA transfection efficacy of polyion complex micelle and ternary complex, respectively, will be described.