Protoporphyrin IX production and its photodynamic effects on glioma cells, neuroblastoma cells and normal cerebellar granule cells in vitro with 5-aminolevulinic acid and its hexylester.

5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA) has shown promising in photodynamic detection and therapy of brain tumor. However, the knowledge on selective accumulation of ALA-induced protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) in brain tumor tissue is still fragment. In the present study, the rat C6 glioma cells, human SK-N-SH neuroblastoma cells, and rat normal cerebellar granule cells (RCG) were used to investigate the PpIX production and photocytotoxicity in vitro. The C6 cells and SK-N-SH cells showed a similar kinetics of PpIX accumulation after exposure to ALA or ALA hexyl ester (ALA-H), with an initial increase up to 6-8 h and then saturated. In the case of RCG cells, the PpIX accumulation slowly increased until 12 h studied. However the cellular PpIX content was more than 10 times higher in the C6 and SK-N-SH cells than that in the normal RCG cells. The intracellular localization of PpIX measured by cofocal laser scanning microscopy was in same pattern in the C6 glioma cells and RCG normal cells with a diffuse cytoplasm distribution. The sensitivity of the C6 cells and SK-N-SH cells to ALA or ALA-H PDT was similar. It appears that ALA-H could achieve similar or slightly better results than ALA with respect to PpIX production and photoinactivation of cells, although a 10 times lower concentration of ALA-H was used.