Fig. 4.

Intracellular characterization for EDT enhanced PDT. Cytotoxicity of EDT-PDT to NIH-3T3 cells at different light density of (a) 0.25 J/cm² and (b) 0.5 J/cm² in 72 h. Cytotoxicity of EDT-PDT to XL50 cells at different light density of (c) 0.25 J/cm² and (d) 0.5 J/cm² in 24 h (n = 3). (e) The flow cytometry test of SCC cells treated with EDT, PDT and EDT-PDT. (f) The statistical analysis of flow cytometry test. (n = 3). (g) Western blot analysis of p53 and cleaved Caspase-3 of EDT, PDT and EDT-PDT groups in SCC cells. (h) The relative intensities of cleaved Caspase-3 and p53. (i) The ratio of JC-1 aggregates (Red) and JC-1 monomers (Green) by the flow cytometric assays of JC-1 staining of EDT-PDT treated XL50 cells. (j) The ATP level in XL50 cells of different groups. (k) Intratumoral ROS imaging of O₂, H₂O₂, and ¹O₂. The corresponding fluorescence images of normal tumor tissues were set as control. Scale bar = 200 μm. All the data are presented as mean ± s.d. The data were statistically analyzed by ANOVA method in Fig. 4f, and by two-tailed t-test in Fig. 4c, d, h, i, and j. The significance level was set at*p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001. All statistical analyses were conducted using GraphPad Prism software.