A study of photodynamic therapy against human oral cancer cells using a new photosensitizer (pheophorbide-a)

Abstract

We have already shown that photodynamic therapy using of a new photosensitizer, pheophorbide-a (Ph-a) would be useful for cancer treatment.
In this report, we have studied the sensitivity to Ph-a in 5 cancer cell lines which were derived from the oral region.
It has been revealed that oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cells were shown to be more sensitive to Ph-a in comparison to salivary gland-derived adenocarcinoma (SAC) cells. The SCC cells which were sensitive to Ph-a demonstrated an increased intra-cellular level of Ph-a in comparison to SAC cells. These results indicate that the accumulation of Ph-a in the cells should reflect to the cytotoxity. In addition to these findings, it was revealed that SCC cells exhibited an increased level of reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activities, and glutathione S-transferase (GST) activities in comparison to SAC cells.