Hypericin, an antidepressant and antiviral agent being evaluated in phase I and II trials for patients with HIV infection, is known to be a potent protein kinase C inhibitor. We have investigated its effects on cellular response to radiation via a tetrazolium-formazan cell growth rate assay using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide and clonogenic assay in three human g...

Hypericin is a naturally occurring substance found in the common St. John's Wort (Hypericum species) and can also be synthesized from the anthraquinone derivative emodin. As the main component of Hypericum perforatum, it has traditionally been used throughout the history of folk medicine. In the last three decades, hypericin has also become the subject of intensive biochemical research and is p...

The exact cellular target for the potent anti-cancer agent hypericin has not yet been determined; this thus encourages the application of computational chemistry tools to be employed in order to provide insights that can be employed in further drug development studies. In the present study computational docking and molecular dynamics simulations are applied to investigate possible interactions ...

Hypericin, an extract from St John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum L.), is a promising photosensitizer in the context of clinical photodynamic therapy due to its excellent photosensitizing properties and tumoritropic characteristics. Hypericin-PDT induced cytotoxicity elicits tumor cell death by various mechanisms including apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy-related cell death. However, limited rep...

In the present study, we evaluated the possibility of enhancing the photodynamic effect of hypericin in transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) spheroids by the use of the oxygen carrier, perfluorodecalin. Following incubation with hypericin, RT-112 TCC spheroids were irradiated in the presence or absence of perfluorodecalin, at light doses of 7 J/cm2 or 28 J/ cm2, delivered at a fluence rate of 15 m...

Hypericin has been widely studied as a potent photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy in both preclinical and clinical settings. Recently, hypericin has also been discovered to have a specific avidity for necrotic tissue. This affinity is also observed in a series of radiolabeled derivatives of hypericin, including [(123)I]iodohypericin, [(124)I]iodohypericin, and [(131)I]iodohypericin. Hyperi...

Hypericin is a potent agent in the photodynamic therapy of cancers and accumulates to a large extent in tumor tissue. To better understand the impact of hypericin aggregates present in the delivery vehicle on the biodistribution of the compound, we compared the in vivo tissue accumulation after administering hypericin suspended as coarse aggregates in phosphate-buffered saline, with the biodist...

In this proof-of-principle study, the necrosis avid agent hypericin was investigated as a potential indicator for early therapeutic response following radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of murine liver tumors. Eight mice bearing intrahepatic RIF-1 tumors were intravenously injected with hypericin 1 h before or 24 h after RFA treatment. Mice were euthanized 24 h after hypericin injection and excised ...

AIM To investigate the effects of hypericin which is obtained from the plant Hypericum perforatum on the expression and the regulation of ADAMTS8 and ADAMTS9 genes in MCF7 breast cancer cells and on the viability of these cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS MCF7 cells were cultured and were separately exposed to 2, 10 and 50 µl/mL of hypericin. After 24 hours, RNA was isolated from these cells and c...

Hypericin, extracted from H. perforatum, can induce the generation of reactive oxygen species by visible light irradiation, which may consequently induce the conformational change of hemoglobin. We have not only employed UV-vis spectroscopy to observe the changes of UV-vis spectra of the protein, which reveals the conformational changes of the protein, but also employed electrochemical method t...