Berberine Photo-activation Potentiates Cytotoxicity in Human Astrocytoma Cells Through Apoptosis Induction

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has recently attracted interest as an innovative and adjuvant treatment for different cancers including malignant gliomas. Among these, Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most prevalent neoplasm in the central nervous system. Despite conventional therapeutic approaches that include surgical removal, radiation, and chemotherapy, GBM is characterized by an extremely poor prognosis and a high rate of recurrence. PDT is a physical process that induces the tumor cell death through the genesis and accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by the light energy interaction with a photosensitizing agent. In this contribution, we explored the potentiality of the plant alkaloid berberine (BBR) as a photosensitizing and cyto-toxic agent coupled with a PDT scheme using a blue light source in human established astrocy-toma cell lines. Our data mainly indicated for the combined BBR-PDT scheme a potent activation of apoptosis pathway, through a massive ROS production, a great extent of mitochondria depo-larization and the sub-sequent activation of caspases. Altogether, these results demonstrated that BBR is an efficient photosensitizer agent and that its association with PDT may be a potential an-ticancer strategy for high malignant gliomas