Photosensitization in Mammalian Cells

Controlled targeting of different subcellular sites by porphyrins in tumour-bearing mice

“…It is likely that this class of porphyrins are embedded into lipid cores of the membrane, thus becoming sparingly accessible to albumin and other serum proteins; the latter represent the usual carriers of porphyrins in the bloodstream. As known, porphyrinphotosensitisation of mammalian cells induces the formation of cholesterol hydroperoxides besides cross-linking of membrane proteins (Spikes, 1983), although the relative weight of either photoprocess in causing the membrane lysis is not definitely assessed as yet.…”

Phthalocyanines as Photosensitizers in Biological Systems and for the Photodynamic Therapy of Tumors

“…Singlet oxygen is much more reactive than ground state oxygen and reacts rapidly with electron-rich regions of a number of types of biomolecules. Typical molecules oxidized include certain amino acid residues in proteins (cysteinyl, histidyl, methionyl, tryptophyl and tyrosyl), guanine residues in nucleic acids, unsaturated lipids and phospholipids, and cholesterol (Foote, 1982;Spikes, 1983;Spikes and Straight, 1985a).…”

Photomodification of Biological Membranes With Emphasis on Singlet Oxygen Mechanisms

“…Although this review is concerned with singlet oxygen effects in membrane photomodification the reader should be aware that the singlet oxygen pathway is not the only mechanism of membrane photomodification, Type I, non-singlet oxygen mechanisms, may also be important under some conditions, particularly when sensitizer is bound to the membrane or under conditions of low oxygen tension (see Spikes, 1983a).…”

“…Membrane photomodification has been included in a number of more general reviews which may be of interest to the reader including reviews of mechanisms of photosensitization (Girotti, 1983), photosensitizers in cell biology (Ito, 1983), mammalian cell photomodification (Spikes, 1983a), porphyrins in model cell systems (Spikes, 1983b), photodynamic cell killing (Pooler and Valenzeno, 1981), chlorpromazine photosensitized damage (Kochevar, 1981) and a review of molecular excited states in micellar systems (Lindig and Rodgers, 1980).…”