2. Academic Validation
  3. Roles of oxygen and photoinduced acidification in the light-dependent antiviral activity of hypocrellin A

Roles of oxygen and photoinduced acidification in the light-dependent antiviral activity of hypocrellin A

  • Biochemistry. 1995 Dec 5;34(48):15845-8. doi: 10.1021/bi00048a030.
M J Fehr 1,  S L Carpenter,  Y Wannemuehler,  J W Petrich
Affiliations

Affiliation

  • 1 Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, USA.
PMID: 7495816 DOI: 10.1021/bi00048a030
Abstract

Hypocrellin A displays photoinduced Antiviral activity, in particular against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), as does its counterpart, hypericin. Although hypocrellin A, like hypericin, executes an excited-state intramolecular proton transfer, it differs from hypericin in two important ways. Unlike hypericin, hypocrellin A absolutely requires oxygen for its Antiviral activity. Also, whereas we have previously demonstrated that hypericin functions as a light-induced proton source, we do not observe that hypocrellin A acidifies its surrounding medium in the presence of LIGHT. These results are discussed in the context of the ground- and excited-state photophysics of hypericin and its mechanisms of photoinduced virucidal activity.

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