Pharmacokinetic and -Dynamic Investigations on HL60 Cells with a New Protoporphyrin Dimethyl Ester Hematoporphyrin Dimer

: Pharmacokinetic and -dynamic studies using a novel porphyrin dimer were performed in human line HL60 promyelocytic leukemia cells. Uptake of the dimer into leukemic cells was observed to occur at substantially lower concentrations in comparison to a previously described monomeric dihematoporphyrin ether-free hematoporphyrin derivative. Both dimer and monomer derivatives could be demonstrated to inhibit cell growth, with no remarkable quantitative differences being found in cell proliferation studies regarding [3H]-thymidine incorporation and assay for colony formation. Structurally, the new compound represents an unsymmetrically substituted diethyl ether having protoporphyrin dimethyl ester and hematoporphyrin as substituents. For this reason the compound was designated as protoporphyrin dimethyl ester hematoporphyrin ether.