Herein, we report three new metal-free,
photochemically active
single, dual, and combinatorial CORMs (photoCORMs) based on a carbazole-fused
1,3-dioxol-2-one moiety which released one equivalent of CO, two equivalent
of CO, and a combination of one equivalent of each CO and anticancer
drug upon one- and two-photon excitation, respectively. The photoCORMs
exhibited good cellular uptake and real-time monitoring ability of
CO uncaging by a color change approach in cancerous B16F10 cells.
Interestingly, the cytotoxicity assay on B16F10 cells indicated that
the dual photoCORM has increased anticancer activity over the single
and combinatorial photoCORMs upon irradiation. Our results also showed
that CO could accelerate the effectiveness of the well-known anticancer
drug (chlorambucil). Finally, the in vivo evaluation
of the dual photoCORM on an established murine melanoma tumor (C57BL/6J
mouse model) manifested a significant regression of tumor volume and
led to significant improvement (>50%) in the overall survivability.