Investigation of photodynamic anticancer activities of a cellulose acetate encapsulated bodipy derived photosensitizer

According to the World Health Organization, cancer is a genetic disease leading cause of deaths worldwide. Although various treatment modalities, the cancer incidence continues to increase. Conventional cancer treatment options can be successful in small non-metastatic tumors. However, chemotherapeutic treatments can cause serious side effects and lead to undesirable morbidities. In addition, treatment success decreases as a result of chemoresistance, and this causes recurrence of the cancer. Recently, photodynamic therapy shows promise for cancer treatment. Photodynamic therapy is a method that works together with a light source, a photosensitizing agent and oxygen. Photodynamic cancer treatment has many advantages, because it does not require surgical procedure, its recursiveness, and does not have the danger of overdose of the used photosensitizers. In this respect, it could be assumed as a functional and reliable therapeutic method. In this thesis, it was aimed to investigate the anticancer effects of the newly synthesized photosensitizer potential molecule using the BODIPY core on melanoma SK-MEL-30, colorectal carcinoma HT29 and healthy fibroblast L929 cell lines as a control. In this context, the in vitro effects of BODIPY-based photosensitizer molecule, its encapsulated form with cellulose acetate and empty cellulose acetate capsules were investigated. In our experimental study, cytotoxic effects of molecules were analyzed by MTT method, apoptotic effects were analyzed by flow cytometric analysis using Annexin V-FITC kit, and ROS quantification was performed with DCFDA kit. Colony forming ability of treated cells was determined by colony formation assay. The treated cancer cells with BODIPY caused approximately 7-fold higher toxic effects, increased apoptotic effects by 33% on SK-MEL-30 cells, and an approximately 2.6-fold increase in intracellular ROS amount, particularly in HT29 cells, compared to healthy fibroblasts. It was determined that the colony forming ability of the treated cells was significantly reduced. Compared to L929 cells, the colony formation ability was decreased approximately 2.2-fold in HT29 cells, and approximately 5.3-fold in SK-MEL-30 cells . As a result of this study, we determined that BODIPY-mediated photodynamic therapy causes cytotoxicity and apoptotic cell death due to the increase in the amount of intracellular ROS in drug resistant SK-MEL-30 and HT29 cell lines. In the light of these findings, we suggest that BODIPY molecules encapsulated with cellulose acetate can be used as an effective agent against melanoma and colorectal carcinoma. Keywords: Anti-cancer effects, Colorectal carcinoma, Melanoma, Photodynamic therapy, Photosensitizer, Reactive oxygen species.