title: The influence of light and darkness on cutaneous fluorescence in mice.
abstract: The present work was carried out to investigate the role of light and darkness on the endogenous biosynthesis of porphyrins in mammalian skin (hairless BALB/c mouse) in vivo. In the skin of mice that were constantly kept in darkness (DD), increased endogenous porphyrin fluorescence was observed, which mainly originated from protoporphyrin IX (PpIX). No significant increase in the porphyrin levels was observed in mice that were kept under a normal day-night cycle (LD 12:12 h). The presence of cutaneous PpIX together with ambient light may comprise a photosensitizing mechanism by which PpIX may be a photomessenger between ambient light and internal rhythms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Biology, The Norwegian Radium Hospital, N-310 Oslo, Norway. petras.juzenas@labmed.uio.no
authors.forename: Petras
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Juzenas
authors.forename: Asta
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Juzeniene
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Iani
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003624:Darkness; D005260:Female; D008027:Light; D051379:Mice; D008812:Mice, Hairless; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D011524:Protoporphyrins / Q000378:metabolism*; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism / Q000528:radiation effects*; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D011524:Protoporphyrins; C028025:protoporphyrin IX