Degradation of natural toxins by phthalocyanines–example of cyanobacterial toxin, microcystin

摘要

Phthalocyanines (Pcs) are promising photosensitizers for use in various branches of science andnindustry. In the presence of visible light and diatomic oxygen, phthalocyanines can react tonproduce singlet oxygen, a member of reactive oxygen species able to damage different moleculesnand tissues. The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of phthalocyanines to degradennatural toxins in the presence of visible light. As the representative of hardly degradable toxins,na group of cyanobacterial peptide toxins—microcystin-LR—was chosen for this study. Accordingnto our results, phthalocyanines are able to degrade 61,5% of microcystins within a 48-hournincubation (38% of microcystins was degraded after 24 h and 24% after 12 h of incubation).nAlthough other oxidants like hydrogen peroxide or ozone are able to degrade microcystins withinnseveral hours, we assume that by optimizing the spectrum emitted by light source and bynchanging the absorption characteristics of Pcs, microcystins degradation by phthalocyaninesncould be more effective in the near future.