Introduction: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a method based on application of a photo sensitive agent and administration of light irradiation on the treated samples. PDT is applied as an effective tool with minimal side effect against tumor tissues. Aim of this study is assessment of critical genes targets by PDT in the cellular level of cancer to provide new prospective of its molecular mechanism.

Methods: To assess effect of PDT the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) are extracted from gene expression profiles of human umbilical vein endothelial (HUVEC) Cells treated with PDT from gene expression omnibus (GEO) databases. The queried DEGs were evaluated via regulatory network and gene ontology enrichment to find the critical targets.

Results: Among 76 queried significant DEGs, 27 individuals were interacted by activation, inhibition, and co-expression actions. Number of 30 DEGs were related to the 5 classes of biological terms. IL-17 signaling pathway and PTGS2, CXCL8, FOS, JUN, CXCL1, ZFP36, and FOSB were identified as the crucial targets of PDT.

Conclusion: PDT as a stimulator of gene expression and activator of gene activity overexpressed and hyper-activated many genes. It seems that PST introduces number of genes and pathways that can be regulate by anticancer drugs to fight against cancers.