Cucurbit[7]uril enhances photosensitization of porphyrins in Neuroblastoma cells

Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid tumor of childhood. Advancements in treatments have improved survival rates of children suffering from this ailment. Novel therapeutic techniques may further reduce cancer related mortality. One of several emerging therapeutic options is Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) that uses light activated photosensitizer (PS) inducing cell death by apoptosis and/or necrosis. Nanotechnology has contributed to improving photosensitizers for PDT, increasing the efficiency of therapy using porphyrins and their derivatives. Efforts have been made to develop better mechanism to improve PS and consequently PDT effect. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of the PDT using porphyrins (TPOR) and TPOR/(CB[7])4 (TPOR: CB[7] = 1: 4). Here we report the PDT effect of TPOR and TPOR/(CB[7])4 in the treatment of the human neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y). The TPOR and TPOR/(CB[7])4 didn’t show more significant dark-cytotoxicity and TPOR/(CB[7])4 had a stronger photodynamic effects than TPOR through generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) under irradiation with a 525 nm laser. The high photodynamic efficiency of TPOR/(CB[7])4 suggests that it has the potential to be a PDT agent.