Interactions of microbubbles produced for sono-chemotherapy with cancer cell

Today, chemotherapy is one of the most common treatments for many types of cancer, including breast cancer, which is the most common cancer type in women. However, due to the systemic side effects of chemotherapy and drug resistance that develops frequently against chemotherapeutic drugs, many researchers are working on alternatives to make the treatment more effective. One of these alternative applications is sono-chemotherapy, which includes a chemotherapy drug accompanied by microbubbles, and a sonosensitive agent that can chemically become active by ultrasound, which can create ROS, effectively damage cancer cells with the effect of the applied ultrasound. The combination of ultrasound-responsive microbubbles with a sonosensitive agent and a chemotherapeutic drug offers the opportunity to both provide enhanced sonodynamic activation in the area of the cells and non-invasive delivery of the chemotherapy drug into the cancer cell by blasting the microbubbles with ultrasound. For this purpose, in this study, the chemotherapy drug docetaxel and sonosensitive agent Chlorin e6 were introduced to the culture medium where the human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 cells were located, and then microbubbles were detonated with ultrasound waves, and cell viability, rate of apoptosis, ROS production and changes in mitochondrial membrane potentials were investigated. According to the findings obtained, the application of sono-chemotherapy damages the cells by significantly reducing cell viability, triggering apoptosis in the cells, increasing the ROS formation and deepens the cellular damage by disrupting the membrane potential of the mitohondria.