Confocal fluorescence imaging reveals that when curcumin is delivered alone, it preferentially associates with mitochondria, whereas curcumin bound to bovine serum albumin is found in additional locations within the cell, a fact that may be related to the higher phototoxicity observed in this case.
Because of their small size, targeted albumin nanoconjugates could penetrate tumor spheroids of SKOV-3 ovarian cancer cells and produced strong phototoxicity in this 3-D model.