Study of the efficacy of 5-ALA mediated photodynamic therapy on human rhabdomyosarcoma cell line (RD)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism of cell death by photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the Rhabdomyosarcoma (RD) cell line. The present study evaluates the effects of photodynamic therapy (PDT) with 5-ALA as photosensitizer using human muscle cancer cells as experimental model. We study the photosensitizer uptake, cytotoxicity, phototoxicity, and cellular viability of the RD cells which was estimated by means of neutral-red spectrophotometric assay. The given experiment was consisted of two steps. For the first one, RD cells were exposed to 5-ALA at concentrations of 0 up to 1000 μg of ALA/ml in minimum essential medium (MEM). The optimal uptake of photosensitizer (5-ALA) in RD cells was investigated by means of spectrometric measurements. Cells viability was determined by means of neutral red assay (NRA). In the second step, 5-ALA exposed RD cells were irradiated with red light (a diode laser, λ = 635 nm) at total light dose of 80 J/cm2. The influence of different incubation times and concentrations of 5-ALA, different irradiation doses and various combinations of photosensitizer and light doses on the viability of RD cells were investigated. It was observed that sensitizer concentration or light doses have no significant effect on cells viability when studied independently. The maximal cellular uptake occurred after 47 hours in vitro incubation. The phototoxic assay showed that ALA-PDT induced killing of 76% of the cells at 250 μg/ml drug dose and 80 J/cm2 light dose.