Background: Photodynamic therapy is a clinically approved, minimally invasive,therapeutic procedure used for the treatment of several cancers. In recent years, sunitinib, one of the tyrosine kinase inhibitors, has also attracted attention as a novel photosensitizer. However, there is currently no data available on the combined cytotoxic effects of sunitinib and photoirradiation on renal cell carcinoma including how the treatment induced cellular toxicity.
Methods: In the present study, we used sunitinib as a photosensitizer and evaluated the effects of sunitinib and photodynamic therapy treatment on renal cancer cell lines, including the induction of cell death.
Results: Our study showed that treatment with sunitinib and photoirradiation at 8 mW/cm2 for 30 min resulted in the production intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), which is indicated by the increase in mRNA expression levels of PAI-1, NF-κβ, and Caspase-3. An increase in rate of apoptotic reaction and increase in the expression level of apoptotic marker were also observed when cells undergo treatment with sunitinib and photoirradiation.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that combining photodynamic therapy with sunitinib represents a minimally invasive therapeutic procedure with cancer selectivity for renal cell carcinoma.
Keywords: Photodynamic therapy; Photosensitizer; Renal cell carcinoma; Sunitinib.
Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.