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Butylcycloheptylprodigiosin and undecylprodigiosin are potential photosensitizer candidates for photodynamic cancer therapy

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Abstract

Background

Prodiginines are bacterial red polypyrrole pigments and multifaceted secondary metabolites. These agents have anti-proliferative, immunosuppressive, antimicrobial, and anticancer effects. Recent analysis revealed that prodigiosin hypersensitizes Serratia marcescens to gamma radiation. In the present study, we report the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity properties of undecylprodigiosin and butylcycloheptylprodigiosin in the presence and absence of radiation through the MTT and alkaline comet experiments.

Methods and results

Findings demonstrated that undecylprodigiosin was at least a fivefold more cytotoxic at low radiation doses (1 and 3 Gy) on both MCF7 and HDF lines rather than in the absence or high radiation doses (5 Gy) (P value < 0.05). Although butylcycloheptylprodigiosin toxicity on MCF7 and HDF was dose-dependent, it was not influenced by any radiation doses (P value > 0.05). Comet findings confirmed that these compounds’ genotoxicity is only dose-dependent. Radiation had no significant effects on DNA damage on any of the cells (P value > 0.05).

Conclusions

In general, it can be concluded that the prodiginines are cytotoxic agents that act as a double-edged sword, radiosensitizers and radio-protective, respectively at low and high radiation doses in cancer treatment process. As the results they could be used in antitumor therapies very soon.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences for financial support (Grant No. IR.SKUMS.REC.1395.306). The founder has no role in study design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation. Also, the authors acknowledge and appreciate the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments, which have helped improve the article’s quality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran

    Zahra Arshadi, Sayedeh Azimeh Hosseini, Seyed Abbas Mirzaei & Fatemeh Elahian

  2. Department of Medical Physics, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran

    Daryoush Fatehi

  3. Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Basic Health Sciences Institute, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran

    Fatemeh Elahian

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  1. Zahra Arshadi
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  4. Seyed Abbas Mirzaei
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Contributions

FE coordinated the study, designed the experiments, and revised the final manuscript. SAM and DF participated in the data analyses and intellectual discussions of the data. ZA and SAH performed the experiments, analyzed the data, and participated in the manuscript writing as parts of their theses. All authors reviewed and accepted the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Fatemeh Elahian.

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Arshadi, Z., Hosseini, S.A., Fatehi, D. et al. Butylcycloheptylprodigiosin and undecylprodigiosin are potential photosensitizer candidates for photodynamic cancer therapy. Mol Biol Rep 48, 5965–5975 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-021-06598-1

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