Kinetic of the intracellular incorporation of new phthalocyanines synthesized in Mexico and its potential as photosensibilizers in the photodynamic therapy

The search of more specific and efficient photosensitizer in low oxygen tensions is a need in the Photodynamic Therapy (PDT). Phthalocyanines have demonstrated to have the above mentioned activity. The aim of this work was to determine the efficiency of PDT using two phthalocyanines synthesized in Mexico to eliminate melanoma cells. B16F0 melanoma mouse cells were exposed to concentrations from 8.95×10^-5 to 0.733 mg/mL of F16VoPc and F16NbPcC13 during 24h, afterwards cellular mortality was measured. One kinetic was realized to determine the intracellular incorporation of phthalocyanines by confocal microscopy at 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 24 h of exposition. The PDT was applied exposing the cells to innocuous concentration (that does not provoke cellular death with out irradiation) and irradiating with an argon laser at 100 J/cm². For each phthalocyanine a control group was used; one group was not treated neither with light nor with phthalocyanine, the other group it was only irradiated. 24 h after treatment the citotoxicity was measured by Alamar blue assay. The innocuous concentration found for the phthalocyanines F16VoPc and F16NbPcC13 were 4.58×10-2 and 2.29×10^-2 mg/mL, respectively. The time of maximum intracellular accumulation for both phthalocyanines was 24 h. Only the F 16VoPc had anticancerous activity and induced 31.7 % of cellular death. The PDT might offer a potential alternative to the treatment of this cancer when is used the phthalocyanine F16VoPc.