Talk:Psoralen

Cancer treatment

'Tis also used in treating leukemia and T-cell cancers. UV is also the main component in so-called Rife therapy...usually 3 different wavelengths at once.--sascha r.

Do you have any books or refs on that? I'm a chemist, so I know little about that stuff. Thanks, Walkerma 06:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Psoralen is also an "Intercalating Agent".

There is no mention of the possible negative side effects Psoralen has.

Psoralen intercalates into the DNA and, on exposure to ultraviolet (UVA) radiation, can form covalent ICLs with thymines preferentially at 5'-TpA sites in the genome, inducing apoptosis. Psoralen plus UVA (PUVA) therapy has shown considerable clinical efficacy¹. Unfortunately, a side effect of PUVA treatment is a higher risk of skin cancer².

1. Qi Wu, Laura A Christensen, Randy J Legerski & Karen M Vasquez (2005) Mismatch repair participates in error-free processing of DNA interstrand crosslinks in human cells. Full Article

2. Momtaz K, Fitzpatrick TB (1998) The benefits and risks of long-term PUVA photochemotherapy. Dermatol Clin 16: 227−234 PubMed —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.250.37.217 (talk) 11:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

Psoralen do also give rice to mono-adducts. that also can give rice to severe DNA damage, Both inter-strand cross-links as well as mono-adducts gives rise to increased cell death, mutations, blocked replication and transcription, leading to genomic instability or cell death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.117.98 (talk) 06:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions

• Is it found in celery or celery seed?

• Can it also make the eyes more sensitive to bright sunlight?

Badagnani (talk) 21:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

• "high UV absorbance of psoralen" so what does this do -> what is the chemical reaction that occurs when UV energy interacts with the chemical structure of psoralen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.245.248.160 (talk) 09:29, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe it just jumps to an excited state, via a molecular electronic transition. Not 100% certain on that, though! Walkerma (talk) 21:14, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

NPOV

The article lead currently states "safe to mammals", but this is untrue. In mammals the molecule is a powerful carcinogen (the article says so) and teratogen (by virtue of its mechanism, breaking DNA). --Una Smith (talk) 03:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

This isn't an NPOV issue, it's an outdated reference problem! I added the sentence about safe to mammals, from the Dean reference, which talked about the difference in toxicity to fish vs mammals. However, there are presumably some Indonesian fishermen getting cancer late in life, which Dean might not have known about! With hindsight I should have been more careful - but I always like it when I can find an everyday application of a compound like this, particularly one as interesting as this. If you can reword the information to account for what is NOW known, I'd appreciate it. Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 13:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I looked at this discussion, and I don't see any real disagreement. I moved the blockquoted, cited paragraph above into the main page and removed the POV template.66.127.52.57 (talk) 05:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It is more or less safe to animals in it's unactivted form. has quite high LC50 value but it is highly toxic when exposed to sun light, and many persons per year get severe sunburns due to eating celery (containing psoralens) during the summer. also when used in cancer therapy it kills the expose cells, can this realy be considered safe to mammals? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.117.98 (talk) 06:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Giant Hogweed plant

This other article's talk page asks that someone smart contribute mention of the toxins / antidote involved. Could someone from here help with that. That talk page entry was made by me and contains a Google search of the two terms that I found associated with the Giant Hogweed plant in various search results. Thanks. Oldspammer (talk) 05:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)