Photobiological studies with dictamnine, a furoquinoline alkaloid

Dictamnine, a naturally occurring furoquinoline, produces bacterial frameshift mutations in the dark. It does not form DNA interstrand crosslinks in bacterial cells in the presence of near-ultraviolet light (300-380 nm). It is more active than angelicin but slightly less active than 8-MOP as a phototoxic agent with E. coli. It is however a more active mutagen than 8-MOP at equivalent concentration. Dictamnine is slightly more potent than the same concentration of angelicin in producing photosensitized lethality in Chinese hamster cells. It does, however, produce almost twice as many sister-chromatid exchanges per lethal event than angelicin. The concept of 'unit dose' relating the observable photoinduced damage by the photosensitizer and the total irradiation appears to apply reasonably well to the actions of dictamnine in killing bacterial and mammalian cells, in the formation of sister-chromatid exchanges, but not to the induction of bacterial mutations.