Assessment of the relevance of supported planar bilayers for modeling specific interactions between glycodendrimeric porphyrins and retinoblastoma cells

► Assessment of dendrimeric porphyrin phototoxicity against retinoblastoma (Y79) cells. ► Analysis of dendrimeric porphyrin interaction with fetal calf serum. ► Building of an Y79 cell-sensor for evaluation of specific glycodendrimeric porphyrin-sugar receptor interactions. ► Discrimination between nonglyconjugated and glycoconjugated dendrimeric porphyrins. ► Comparison of the Y79 cell model with an artificial lipid-concanavalin A bilayer.