Optimizing photodynamic therapy using nanoemulsion systems containing aluminum phthalocyanine chloride against melanoma skin cancer
Optimizing photodynamic therapy using nanoemulsion systems containing aluminum phthalocyanine chloride against melanoma skin cancer
Malahat Rezaee,1,*Mina Bakhtiary,2Ramesh Monajemi,3
1. Department of Biochemistry, Falavarjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran 2. Department of Biochemistry, Falavarjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran 3. Department of Biology, Falavarjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran
Introduction: In recent days, skin cancer is seen as one of the most hazardous form of the cancers found in humans. Skin cancer is found in various types such as melanoma, basal and squamous cell carcinoma among which melanoma is the most unpredictable. However, conventional treatments have not been very successful to this problem. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a minimally aggressive therapeutic modality approved for clinical treatment of several types of cancer and non-oncological disorders. PDT employs a photosensitizer (PS) and visible light in the presence of oxygen, leading to production of cytotoxic reactive oxygen species, 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 melanoma skin cancer in vitro. Then, anticancer activity of the system in the optimized conditions was evaluated against normal cells.
Methods: 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 mouse melanoma cancer cell line of B16-F0, 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: 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 melanoma cells in the presence of laser and dark conditions were 34.22% and 73.71%, 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 71.71% of viability, which is significantly (p ˂ 0.05) higher than the cancerous cells in the same conditions.
Conclusion: The results showed that the optimized conditions were effective in reduction of viability of the melanoma skin cancer cells, while were not toxic for the normal cells. The current results were also depicted that the NE/AlClPc used in PDT had significant effects on the cell death of the melanoma skin cancer cells.