A caged nicotine with nanosecond range kinetics and visible light sensitivity

OSCAR FILEVICH; MARCELO SALIERNO; ROBERTO ETCHENIQUE

JOURNAL OF INORGANIC BIOCHEMISTRY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2010 vol. 104 p. 1248 - 1251

0162-0134

We report the synthesis, characterization and applications of a ruthenium–bipyridine based caged nicotine. The complex [Ru(bpy)2(nic)2]2+ (where bpy = 2,2′ bipyridine and nic = nicotine (3-[(2S)-1-methylpyrrolidin-2-yl] pyridine)) releases nicotine with a quantum yield ϕ = 0.23 upon irradiation with biologically harmless, blue (473 nm) or green (532 nm) light. The photolysis reaction is clean and very fast, with a time constant of 17 ns. The synthesis is simple and the obtained compound is characterized by NMR, UV-Vis spectroscopy and cyclic voltametry. We find that this compound is active in biological systems, being able to elicit action potentials in leech neurons.