Two-photon spectroscopic behaviors and photodynamic effect on the BEL-7402 cancer cells of the new chlorophyll photosensitizer

Abstract

The spectroscopic properties of a new chlorophyll derivate photosensitizer (CDP) are studied under the excitation wavelengths at 800 and 400 nm using femtosecond pulses from a Ti: sapphire laser. The damaging effect of CDP on the BEL-7402 cancer cells is also investigated upon two-photon illumination at 800 nm. The normalized fluorescence spectra of CDP in tetrahydrofuran (THF) show that two-photon and one-photon spectra have the same distributions and the same emission bands (675 nm). The lifetimes of two-and one-photon induced fluorescence of this molecule are of the order of 5.0 ns. By comparing the data it is shown that there is some difference between the two lifetimes, but the difference is less than one nanosecond. The two-photon absorption cross section of the molecule is also measured at 800 nm and estimated as about σ′2 ≈ 31.5×10−50 cm4·s·photon−1. The results of two-photon photodynamic therapy (TPPDT) tests show that CDP can kill all of the tested cancer cells according to the usual Eosine assessment. Our results indicate that the two-photon-induced photophysical, photo-chemical and photosensitizing processes of CDP may be basically similar to those of one-photon excitation. These behaviors of the sample suggest that one may find other possible methods to estimate some photosensitizers’ effects in details such as their distribution in cells and the reactive targets of the sub-cellular parts of some tumor cells via two-photon excitation techniques.