Design and synthesis of some new photosensitizers and determination of their phototoxic effects on breast cancer cell lines

Abstract

Introduction: Photodynamic therapy, which involves the administration of photosensitizing drugs and subsequent exposure of the target tissue to light, is used as a novel clinical approach for the treatment of some diseases, especially cancer. Porphyrin compounds are among the drugs that are widely used in photodynamic therapy. Recently, cationic porphyrin compounds have received growing attention due to their special properties. Aims: The aim of this study was to synthesize and biological evaluation of new cationic porphyrin photosensitizers with anticancer potentials to be used in photodynamic therapy. Methods: New five tetracationic meso substituted dihydroporphyrin derivatives were designed and synthesized, and after determining their chemical structure using UV spectrophotometry IR, 1HNMR, 13CNMR, Mass and CHNS methods, their phototoxicity on breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7) was investigated under optimized conditions in terms of factors such as photosensitizer concentrations and light intensity. Results: The results of cytotoxicity assayed by MTT method showed that the synthesized compounds, even up to concentration of 50 mM had a very low toxicity in the absence of light, which indicates their safety under dark condition. compound 15 with the best physico-chemical properties such as solubility, high absorption intensity in the effective range of photodynamic therapy, high quantum yield of singlet oxygen, had the good toxic effect (IC50=0.5 M) on the cancer cells (MCF7) in the presence of laser light. Conclusion: In summary, according to these results, the new compound 18 could be considered as a suitable candidate for further studies or as a new structural core to design more effective anticancer drugs.