C. Larroque et al., SERUM-ALBUMIN AS A VEHICLE FOR ZINC PHTHALOCYANINE - PHOTODYNAMIC ACTIVITIES IN SOLID TUMOR-MODELS, British Journal of Cancer, 74(12), 1996, pp. 1886-1890
Zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) is a second-generation photosensitiser for
the photodynamic therapy (PDT) of cancer. Unsubstituted ZnPc is, howev
er, highly insoluble in most common solvents, and for clinical applica
tions the material needs to be incorporated in liposomes. We report a
simple, alternative procedure to formulate ZnPc through non-covalent b
inding to bovine serum albumin (BSA). Intravenous administration of Zn
Pc-BSA preparations, at a molar ratio of 11:1 and at a ZnPc dose equiv
alent to 0.5 mol kg(-1), to tumour-bearing mice followed 24 h later by
PDT was shown to provide tumour control in two different models, the
EMT-6 tumour in Balb/c mice and the human colon T380 carcinoma in nude
mice. Analysis of serum fractions from treated animals showed that Zn
Pc readily redistributes over the serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL)
fraction. We also demonstrated the absence of hepatic toxicity of the
ZnPc-BSA preparation by monitoring the hepatic cytochrome P450 activi
y in treated animals and the viability of human cultured hepatocytes.