Chemiluminescence (CL) systems have been used as excitation sources through chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) between CL substrates and
photosensitizers for
photodynamic therapy (
PDT). However, it is still a tremendous challenge to construct a highly effective CL system that has a strong emission intensity and long duration time for
PDT. Here, we constructed a
Fe(III) deuteroporphyrin IX chloride-
polymer dots (FeDP-Pdots) catalyzed CL system for
cancer therapy, where the CL system was used as the generation of
singlet oxygen for inhibiting and killing
tumor cells with the use of FeDP-Pdots as both the catalysts and the
photosensitizers. We prepared
metalloporphyrin-
polymer dots (M-Pdots) by nanoprecipitation and systematically investigated the relationship between the catalytic CL activities of M-Pdots and the structures of
metalloporphyrins. It is found that FeDP-Pdots have the highest catalytic activity among 11 M-Pdots. Their CL intensity is almost 200-fold higher than the
hemin-Pdots catalyzed system. The strong catalytic activity of FeDP is derived from its center ion Fe(III), carboxyl groups, conjugated system, and smaller steric hindrance. Importantly, our results demonstrated that the higher the chemiluminescence intensity is, the more
reactive oxygen species are produced during the Pdots catalyzed CL reaction. The FeDP-Pdots catalyzed
luminol analogue L012-H2O2 CL system was used successfully for in vitro and in vivo
cancer therapy. Our proposed method is characterized by the mass production of
singlet oxygen through CRET and no requirement of light source. It is simple, selective, and effective, which develops a strong emission intensity and long-duration CL system for
PDT and can be applied for the
therapy of deep
cancer tissues.