Photopharmacology is an emerging multidisciplinary field that combines photochemistry and pharmacology.[1] Built upon the ability of light to change the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of bioactive molecules, it aims at regulating the activity of drugs in vivo by using light.[2] The light-based modulation is achieved by incorporating molecular photoswitches such as azobenzene and diarylethenes or photocages such as o-nitrobenzyl, coumarin, and BODIPY compounds into the pharmacophore.[3] This selective activation of the biomolecules helps prevent or minimize off-target activity and systemic side effects. Moreover, light being the regulatory element offers additional advantages such as the ability to be delivered with high spatiotemporal precision, low to negligible toxicity, and the ability to be controlled both qualitatively and quantitatively by tuning its wavelength and intensity.[4]
Though photopharmacology is a relatively new field, the concept of using light in therapeutic applications came into practice a few decades ago. Photodynamic therapy (PTD) is a well-established clinically practiced protocol in which photosensitizers are used to produce singlet oxygen for destroying diseased or damaged cells or tissues. Optogenetics is another method that relies on light for dynamically controlling biological functions especially brain and neural. Though this approach has proven useful as a research tool, its clinical implementation is limited by the requirement for genetic manipulation. Mainly, these two techniques laid the foundation for photopharmacology. Today, it is a rapidly evolving field with diverse applications in both basic research and clinical medicine which has the potential to overcome some of the challenges limiting the range of applications of the other light-guided therapies.
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the mechanism of (a) photopharmacology (b) photodynamic therapy, and (c) optogenetics
The discovery of natural photoreceptors such as rhodopsins in the eye inspired the biomedical and pharmacology research community to engineer light-sensitive proteins for therapeutic applications. The development of synthetic photoswitchable molecules is the most significant milestone in the history of light-delivery systems. Scientists are continuing with their efforts to explore new photoswitches and delivery strategies with enhanced performance to target different biological molecules such as ion channels, nucleic acid, and enzyme receptors. Photopharmacology research progressed from in vitro to in vivo studies in a significantly short period of time yielding promising results in both forms. Clinical trials are underway to assess the safety and efficacy of these photopharmacological therapies further and validate their potential as an innovative drug delivery approach.
Molecular photoswitches are utilized in the field of photopharmacology, where the energetics of a molecule can be reversibly controlled with light to achieve spatial and temporal resolution of a particular effect. Photoswitches may function by undergoing photoisomerization through which light is used to conformationally adapt a molecule to a biological site, or through an environmental effect where an external factor such as a solvent effect or hydrogen bonding can selectively allow or quench an emissive state within a molecule. To visualize photophysical processes, a useful depiction is the Jablonski diagram. This is a diagram which depicts electronic and vibrational energy levels within a molecule as vertical levels and shows the possible relaxation pathways from excited states. Typically, the ground state is referred to as S0, and is drawn at the bottom of the figure with nearby vibrational excitations just above it. An absorption will promote an electron into the S1 state at any vibrational energy level, or into a higher order excited state if the absorbed energy has enough magnitude. The excited state can then undergo internal conversion which is the electronic relaxation to a lower state with the same vibrational energetics or vibrational relaxation within a state. This may be followed by an intersystem crossing wherein the electron undergoes a spin flip, or a radiative or nonradiative decay back to the ground state.[5] One example of an organic compound that undergoes photoisomerization is azobenzene. The structure is two phenyl rings joined with a N=N double bond and is the simplest aryl azo compound. Azobenzene and its derivatives have two accessible absorbance bands: the S1 state from a n-π* transition which can be excited into using blue light, and the S2 state from a π-π* transition that can be excited into using ultraviolet light.[6] Azobenzene and its derivatives have two isomers, trans and cis. The trans isomer, having the phenyl rings on opposite sides of the azo double bond, is the thermally preferred isomer as there is less stereoelectronic distortion and more delocalization present. However, excitation of the trans isomer to the S2 state facilitates a shift to the cis isomer. The S1 absorption is associated with a conversion back to the trans isomer. In this way, azobenzene and its derivatives can act as reversible stores of energy by maintaining a strained configuration in the cis isomer. Modifications of the substituents on azobenzene allow the energetics of these absorptions to be tuned, and if they are engineered such that the two absorption bands overlap a single wavelength of light can be used to flip between them. There are a number of similar photoswitches which isomerize between E and Z configurations across an azo group (for instance, azobenzene and azopyrazole) or an ethylene bridge (for instance, stilbene and hemithioindigo).