Psoralens

US4196281A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• The Regents of the University of California · US

Inventors

• John E. Hearst · Berkeley, US
• Henry Rapoport · Berkeley, US
• Stephen T. Isaacs · Orinda, US
• Che-Kun James Shen · Taipei, TW

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 31, 1978
• Grant date: Apr 1, 1980
• Expiry date: Aug 31, 1998

Classification

• Technology area (CPC C): Chemistry; Metallurgy
• CPC primary: C07H21/00
• WIPO field: Organic fine chemistry
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

New psoralen compounds have been synthesized. The compounds all include the addition of substituent groups at the 4' position on the basic trioxsalen structure. Specifically, the compounds have the structure: ##STR1## wherein X may be any desired substituent such as halogenated alkyls, alcohols, ethers, aminoalkyls, etc. The new substituted psoralens exhibit high solubility in aqueous solution and low dissociation constants from deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), as well as a reactivity with ribonucleic acids (RNA). The psoralen-DNA and psoralen-RNA adducts are useful as a substrate for studying the secondary structures of nucleic acids.