Synthesis of a new chlorin photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy against colon cancer

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) shows tremendous potential for the treatment of cancer due to its advantages of non-invasiveness and low systemic toxicity. Porphyrin compounds are potentially translatable photosensitizers with excellent biocompatibility for PDT. In this paper, we prepared a new photosensitizer 2-(1-hexyloxyethyl)-2-devinyl porphin e6 trisodium salt (HCE6) to investigate its anti-colon cancer effects and inhibition mechanism on HT-29 and LoVo human colon cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. The results indicate that HCE6, with high phototoxicity and low dark toxicity, is capable of inhibiting the proliferation and metastasis of human colon tumors.