DNA nanotechnology offers a versatile toolbox for precise spatial and temporal manipulation of matter on the nanoscale. However, rendering DNA-based systems responsive to light has remained challenging. Herein, we describe remote native (non-photoresponsive) chiral plasmonic molecules (CPMs) using light. Our strategy is based use photoresponsive medium comprising merocyanine-based photoacid. Up...

General anesthetics have been shown to perturb the membrane properties of excitable tissues. Due to their lipid solubility, anesthetics dissolve in every membrane, penetrate into organelles and interact with numerous cellular structures in multiple ways. Several studies indicate that anesthetics alter membrane fluidity and decrease the phase-transition temperature. However, the required concent...

The effects of Ca2+ on electrical propagation in early embryonic precontractile chick hearts were studied optically using a voltage-sensitive merocyanine-rhodanine dye. Spontaneous optical signals, corresponding to action potentials, were recorded simultaneously from 25 separate regions of the eight-to-nine-somite embryonic primitive heart, using a square photodiode array. Electrical propagatio...

We describe the reversible photoactivation of the acid sensitive ligand-gated ion channel ASIC2a, a mammalian channel found throughout the central and peripheral nervous systems that is associated with vision and pain. We also show the activation of GLIC, an acid-sensitive prokaryotic homologue of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. Photoactivation was achieved by using visible light irradiat...

The Friend virus complex was used as a model to study the effects of merocyanine 540 (MC 540)-mediated photosensitization on enveloped viruses. Simultaneous exposure to the lipophilic dye MC 540 and white light inactivated cell-free virus, cell-associated virus, and virus-transformed cells. When used under experimental conditions that are known to preserve most mature blood cells, at least some...

Extracellular release of platelet activating factor (PAF) following synthesis in inflammatory cells is variable and modulated by a number of as yet undefined cellular mechanisms. Using human neutrophils loaded with the tritiated, nonmetabolizable PAF analog, 1-O-alkyl-2-N-methylcarbamyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (C-PAF), extracellular release was studied by techniques involving an albumin ext...

The amphipathic dye, merocyanine 540 (MC540). which preferentially photosensitizes enveloped viruses and virusinfected cells, is currently being evaluated in preclinical models as a blood sterilizing agent. In this communication, we report on an initial analysis of the site and nature of MC54O-mediated photodynamic damages to human herpes simplex virus type 1 and human cytomegalovirus. The comi...

To stimulate a leukemia remission marrow, cell suspensions of normal human bone marrow were mixed with human acute lymphoblastic or myelogenous leukemic cells of the CCRF-SF, Nalm-6, and K-562 lines. The cell mixtures were incubated in vitro with mafosfamide (AZ) or with the photoreactive dye merocyanine 540 (MC-540). A quantity of 10(4) cells of the treated suspensions was dispensed into micro...