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Updated: Aug 13, 2025
Anticancer Efficacy of Photodynamic Therapy with Lung Cancer-Targeted Nanoparticles
Published on: December 1, 2016
Development of a new minimally invasive phototherapy for lung cancer using antibody-toxin conjugate
Takumi Sonokawa1, Naoko Obi2, Jitsuo Usuda1
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan.
Background:
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a cancer-targeted treatment that uses a photosensitizer (PS) and laser irradiation. The effectiveness of current PDT using red light for advanced cancers is limited, because red light can only reach depths within a few millimeters. To enhance the antitumor effect for lung cancers, we developed a new phototherapy, intelligent targeted antibody phototherapy (iTAP). This treatment uses a combination of immunotoxin and a PS, mono-L-aspartyl chlorin e6 (NPe6).
Methods:
We examined whether cetuximab encapsulated in endosomes was released into the cytosol by PS in PDT under light irradiation. A431 cells were treated with fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled cetuximab, NPe6, and light irradiation and were observed with fluorescence microscopy. We analyzed the cytotoxicity of saporin-conjugated cetuximab (IT-cetuximab) in A431, A549, and MCF7 cells and the antitumor effect in model A549-bearing mice in vivo using the iTAP method.
Results:
Fluorescent microscopy analysis showed that the photodynamic effect of NPe6 (20 μM) and light irradiation (37.6 J/cm2 ) caused the release of cetuximab from the endosome into the cytosol. In vitro analysis demonstrated that the iTAP method enhanced the cytotoxicity of IT-cetuximab by the photodynamic effect. In in vivo experiments, compared with IT-cetuximab alone or PDT alone, the iTAP method using a low dose of IT-cetuximab showed the greatest enhancement of the antitumor effect.
Conclusions:
Our study is the first report of the iTAP method using NPe6 for lung cancer cells. The iTAP method may become a new, minimally invasive treatment superior to current PDT methods.
