Iron Metabolism in Aminolevulinic Acid-Photodynamic Therapy with Iron Chelators from the Thiosemicarbazone Group

Iron plays a crucial role in various metabolic processes. However, the impact of 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) in combination with iron chelators on iron metabolism and the efficacy of ALA-photodynamic therapy (PDT) remain inadequately understood. This study aimed to examine the effect of thiosemicarbazone derivatives during ALA treatment on specific genes related to iron metabolism, with a particular emphasis on mitochondrial iron metabolism genes. In our study, we observed differences depending on the cell line studied. For the HCT116 and MCF-7 cell lines, in most cases, the decrease in the expression of selected targets correlated with the increase in protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) concentration and the observed photodynamic effect, aligning with existing literature data. The Hs683 cell line showed a different gene expression pattern, previously not described in the literature. In this study, we collected an extensive analysis of the gene variation occurring after the application of novel thiosemicarbazone derivatives and presented versatile and effective compounds with great potential for use in ALA-PDT.