Mehrgan Ghazaeian - MSc, student of Medicinal chemistry, Islamic Azad university of Tehran North Branch, Tehran, Iran
Khatereh Khorsandi
Reza Hosseinzadeh

Objectives: Melanoma is malignant form of skin cancer which is associated with high mortality rate. One of the significant strategies for the prevention and treatment of various cancers is the use of plant compounds. Phenolic compounds are important category of natural antioxidants in plants that have important biological activities, such as antioxidant and anticancer effects. Curcumin exemplifies a promising natural anticancer agent against many different types of cancers. Photodynamic therapy is a form of phototherapy involving light and a photosensitizing chemical substance which produce molecular oxygen lead to cell death.Methods: To improve curumin applicability in cancer treatment, we synthetized curcumin- silica nanoparticle which used as a nano complex photosensitizer in photodynamic therapy of human melanoma cancer cells. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), TEM, SEM and TGA Analyses indicate that curcumin is stabilized in silica. Results: According to the spectroscopy results, the water solubility of curcumin increased. The photodynamic effect of curcumin and the curcumin– silica nano complex was studied on human fibroblast cells (HDF) and human melanoma cancer cells (A375). Cell viability studies revealed that the curcumin-silica nanoparticle were able to show more effective photodynamic effects on the cancer cells as compared to alone curcumin. The apoptotic assay using AO/EB dual staining and colony forming ability assay were confirmed the MTT results.Conclusions: Therefore, these results suggest that the curcumin- silica nanoparticle has great potential to employ in photodynamic treatment of melanoma cancer.

photodynamic therapy, curcumin- silica nanoparticle, Silica-based ceramic nanoparticles, melanoma cancer, apoptosis