Sinoporphyrin sodium: a novel sensitizer in sonodynamic therapy

The aim of this paper was to investigate whether sinoporphyrin sodium (DVDMS) could be a novel sonosensitizer in sonodynamic therapy. We used two kinds of leukemia cells (K562, U937) as main tumor cell models and cells (peripheral blood mononuclear cells, spleen lymphocytes) separated from healthy ICR mice as normal cell models. The multivolume spectrophotometer system and fluorescence spectrophotometer were used to determine the spectral characteristics of DVDMS. The uptake of DVDMS by tumor cells and normal cells was measured by flow cytometry. The MTT assay was used to examine the cytotoxicity and sonotoxicity of DVDMS. The absorption spectra showed that DVDMS had five distinct peaks at 359, 514, 548, 580, and 631 nm, respectively, and the maximum peak was at ∼359 nm. The fluorescence emission spectra showed that DVDMS fluorescence emission was at 642 nm. DVDMS showed an advantage of quick cellular uptake and selectively accumulated in tumor cells compared with normal healthy cells. The cytotoxicity of DVDMS by the MTT method was dose dependent, and DVDMS had little cytotoxicity to normal cells. The sonotoxicity of DVDMS showed that in the presence of DVDMS, under appropriate conditions, the cell-damaging effect of ultrasound was significantly enhanced. The present study showed that the newly synthesized sensitizer, DVDMS, under appropriate experiment conditions, can act as a potential sonosensitizer for tumors in sonodynamic therapy.