The effects of the electro-photodynamic in vitro treatment on human lung adenocarcinoma cells

The effectiveness of the photodynamic therapy (PDT), a low-invasive and targeted therapy of cancer, could be intensified by increasing the intracellular transport of a photosensitizer. The electroporation is used to generate non-specific transient nanopores that facilitate local drug delivery into cells. Photodynamic therapy assisted by electroporation was tested in vitro on the human lung carcinoma cell line A549 by determining the mitochondrial cell function using the MTT assay. The photodynamic activity of the electro-photodynamic treatment (EPDT) with the hematoporphyrin derivative was evaluated in relation to the photodynamic method alone. The experiments show significantly increased efficiency of EPDT, which allows reducing drug doses and exposure time of the cells to the drug in standard PDT. The results have been confronted with the model based on van't Hoff equation. This showed that the growth fractions of cells after EPDT depend on the electric field according to the same relation as in case of electroporation alone.