• Optimizing photodynamic therapy by aluminum phthalocyanine chloride-nanoemulsions against breast cancer
  • ZAHRA JALALI ADERGANI,1,*
    1. 1- Department of Biochemistry, Falavarjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran 2- Department of Biology, Falavarjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran


  • Introduction: Introduction: Cancer is one of the serious burdens worldwide that wide-ranging efforts are being made to combat it. Among different types of cancer, breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. However, conventional treatments have not been very amenable to this problem. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is considered as a new non-invasive method that causes minimal damage to the non-tumor tissue surrounding the lesion. This method requires three components of light, photosensitizer (PS), and oxygen. Absorption of photons by PS lead to excitation of the molecule, producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals, which can damage the cellular organelles and cause cell death. In this study, the photodynamic therapy conditions using a nanoemulsion system containing aluminum phthalocyanine chloride (NE/AlClPc) were optimized against breast cancer in vitro. Then, anticancer activity of the system in the optimized conditions was evaluated against normal cells.
  • Methods: Methodology: Different parameters of photodynamic therapy conditions, i.e. dark incubation times (2, 4, 10, and 24 hr), PS concentration (10, 20, 50, and 90 µg/ml), and laser dose (1.25, 2.5, 5, and 20 J/cm2) were evaluated on breast cancer cell line of MCF-7, using one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) experiments. The optimization was carried out in three steps. In the first step, effect of different incubation time was studied, while the drug and laser dose were kept constant in 50 µg/ml and 2.5 J/cm2, respectively. In the second step, the PS concentration was optimized, while incubation time and laser dose were hold constant in the optimized incubation time resulted from the first step and 2.5 J/cm2, respectively. In the third step, in the optimized conditions obtained from previous steps, the different laser dose was studied on reduction of viability percentage of the cancer cells. Finally, the viability of the normal cells was evaluated in the optimized conditions.
  • Results: Results: The results showed that the optimized conditions of dark incubation time, PS concentration, and laser dose were 4 h, 50 µg/mL, and 2.5 J/cm2, respectively. Under these conditions, the viability percentage of cancerous cells in the presence of laser and dark conditions were 41.8% and 76.8%, respectively. The effect of PS in the presence of laser in reduction of the cancerous cells viability percentage was significant (p ˂ 0.05). In addition, the normal cells under the optimized conditions in the presence of laser showed 67.6% of viability, which is significantly (p ˂ 0.05) higher than the cancerous cells in the same conditions.
  • Conclusion: Conclusion: According to the results, the optimized conditions were effective in reduction of viability of the cancerous cells, while were not toxic for the normal cells. The current results were also showed that the NE/AlClPc used in PDT had significant effects on the cell death of the cancer cells.
  • Keywords: Photodynamic therapy, Breast cancer, Optimization, aluminum phthalocyanine chloride, Nanoemulsions