Heat-Shock Proteins and Photodynamic therapy. 
 
Joanne Baylis*, Craig A. Downs~,
Linda R. Jones* Scott A. Heckathorn~
 
*Department of Physics 
      and Astronomy		 ~Department of Biology
College of Charleston,
Charleston, SC
 
 
      Many cancer treatments, such as photodynamic therapy, generate active
oxygen species, often in the mitochondria.  These oxygen species adversely
react with cellular processes, thereby destroying cancer cells and tissue.
Heat-shock proteins are up-regulated in response to heat stress of other
envoronmental stresses and are known to protect cells from active oxygen
species.  In tumor cells, heat-shock proteins are responsible for the
increased resistance of cancer cells to oxidative-based anti-cancer
therapies.  We will first determine which heat-shock proteins accumulate in
the mitochondria of cancer cells (lung carcinomas).  We will determine if
the over-expression of specific heat-shock proteins in the mitochondria can
protect cells from Photofrin-mediated photodynamic therapy through
protection of mitochondrial electron transport.

Bulletin of the American Physical Society  November 1998.

 
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