SPECTROSCOPIC STUDIES OF CUTANEOUS PHOTOSENSITIZING AGENTS–VIII. A SPIN-TRAPPING STUDY OF LIGHT INDUCED FREE RADICALS FROM CHLORPROMAZINE and PROMAZINE

Abstract— The clinically important phenothiazine drugs, particularly chlorpromazine, often elicit phototoxic and photoallergic reactions. We have used the spin traps 2-methyl-2-nitrosopropane (MNP) and 5,5-dimethyl-pyrroline-N-oxide (DMPO) to define the radical photolysis pathways of chlorpromazine and promazine. In the absence of oxygen the dechlorination product of chlorpromazine is trapped by MNP. The reactivity of the dechlorination product is similar to that of the phenyl radical as shown by its ability to extract hydrogen atoms from donors. Our results suggest that the dechlorination product is sufficiently reactive to account for the observation that chlorpromazine is more phototoxic than its parent promazine. In the presence of oxygen both chlorpromazine and promazine form a superoxide-dismutase-insensitive oxygen-centered intermediate which, when trapped by DMPO, rapidly decays to DMPO-OOH and subsequently to DMPO-OH. In addition, chlorpromazine readily undergoes photoelectron ejection only when it is excited into the second excited singlet state (Δ < 280 nra). This previously unknown wavelength dependence of photoionization should be considered in establishing the mechanism of chlorpromazine photosensitization.