Encapsulation of zinc phthalocyanine into bovine serum albumin aggregates

Abstract

Artificial hybridization of molecules with proteins is beneficial for biomedical applications. Herein, we describe a novel method for encapsulation of zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) aggregates into bovine serum albumin (BSA) aggregates, but not monomeric BSA. This property is potentially useful for not only photodynamic or photothermal therapy but also development of a novel delivery system for hydrophobic drug molecules.

Keywords:

• Phthalocyanine
• bovine serum albumin
• aggregation
• photosensitizer
• photodynamic therapy
• gel-filtration chromatography

Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Toshio Yasokawa for his contribution to this work.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers JP17H06375 and JP16H04128).