Photodynamic Therapy-Mediated Temporal Expression of Thymidine Kinase Genes Ligated to the Human Heat Shock Promotor: Preliminary in vitro Model Study of Enhanced Phototoxicity by PDT-Induced Gene Therapy

PDT-mediated cyototoxicity basically depends on the penetrated light-dose into the tumor tissue. This limits the efficiency of PDT to the superficial tumor region typically less than 1 cm. The localized photochemical generation of reactive oxygen species, including singlet oxygen is known to increase expression of assortment of early response genes including heat shock protein. In order to increase PDT cytotoxicity in the treatment of solid tumor, it is desirable to combine PDT with other therapeutic effects. In this preliminary study we evaluated enhanced cytotoxicity from the PDT-mediated expression of thymidine kinase in a transfected tumor cell line. Two types of photo sensitizers, a hematoporphyrin derivative(Photogem, Russia) and aluminium sulphonated phthalocyanine(Photosense, Russia) were used to evaluate the overexpression of hsp-70 in PDT-treated cell. Transient increase of hsp-70 was observed at 6-8 hrs later following irradiation in the photosense-treated cell whereas it was not observed in Photogem-treated cell. In the presence of ganciclovia, transfected cell showed a 17％ increase in the cytotoxicity compared to the PDT only cell.