Chemiluminescence and photoluminescence of singlet oxygen dimers

Abstract

A hypothesis that living cells emit ultraweak mitogenetic UV radiation, which was firstly advanced by Gurvich in 1923, attracted attention of many researchers to detection of light emission by living cells and studies of its physiological importance. It was found in further work of many groups that living cells emit not only ultraviolet light, but also blue, green and red radiation. In parallel with Gurvich’s observations, Mullet (1927) discovered bright red chemiluminescence which arose in reaction between hydrogen peroxide and OCl--ion. Grog and Kirrmann (1942,1947) proposed that this light emission belongs to excited molecules of singlet oxygen dimols. Further studies of many groups revealed several additional chemiluminescence bands corresponding to singlet oxygen dimols and monomols in the broad spectral range from UV to IR region. It was established that luminescence is generated in bubbles of oxygen, which are released during the reaction. Red chemiluminescence was also observed in living cells and especially when the activity of polymorphonuclear leukocytes was investigated. It is often ascribed to singlet oxygen dimols. A more than decade ago we managed to detect photosensitized luminescence of dimols in the soluton phase under physiological conditions. It is planned to dedicate the present talk to luminescence properties of dimols and probability of their involvement into biochemiluminescence of living organisms.

Speaker

Alexander A. Krasnovsky
Federal Center for Biotechnology, Moscow, Russia
Russia

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