Photodynamic therapy activities of phthalocyanine-based macromolecular photosensitizers on MCF-7 breast cancer cells

Abstract

Poly(oxanorbornene)s with zinc(II) phthalocyanine side chains have been synthesized by ring-opening metathesis polymerization. The incorporation of zinc(II) phthalocyanine into cationic polymer has given poly(oxanorbornene)s noteworthy photophysicochemical properties and the capacity to generate singlet oxygen under light irradiation. To investigate photosensitizer’s properties of the newly synthesized polymers P6 and P7: fluorescence (Φ_F), singlet oxygen (Φ_Δ) and triplet (Φ_T) quantum yields of polymers have been measured in dimethyl sulfoxide and aqueous medium. Singlet oxygen quantum yields of P6 and P7 have been found to be 0.22 and 0.20 in dimethyl sulfoxide, respectively. Then, photodynamic therapy activities of polymers (P1-P7) against human breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF-7 cells) have been investigated. The copolymer P5 bearing pendant zinc(II) phthalocyanine and triethyl phosphonium functionalities has showed enhanced PDT activity with less than 10% viable cells at 60 μg/mL.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Macromolecular photosensitizer
• phthalocyanine
• photodynamic therapy
• poly(oxanorbornene)
• triphenylphosphonium

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) (Project Number: 219Z271).