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A cyclodextrin dimer has been synthesized with two beta-cyclodextrins linked by a flexible chain containing a carbon-carbon double bond. This dimer binds and solubilizes a phthalocyanine-based photosensitizer that generates singlet oxygen on irradiation. When the complex is irradiated, the singlet oxygen cleaves the carbon-carbon link, and the cyclodextrins are released, liberating the photosensitizer into the light path. Ideas about how this phenomenon could be used to make photodynamic tumor therapy into a more selective process are described.
Ruebner et al. (Tue,) studied this question.