Vitamin B2 in nanoscopic environments under visible light: photosensitized antioxidant or phototoxic drug?

Vitamin B2 has been studied as a conventional antioxidant (in the dark) since its discovery in 1926. The effect of visible light on vitamin B2-containing food has a long history of scientific investigation. Although photodegradation of the vitamin producing several photoproducts is evident in certain experimental conditions, phototoxicity revealing an additional oxidative stress in the medium is also clear from some reports. Here we report the photosensitized antioxidant effect of the vitamin, which is found to be greater than 2 orders of magnitude more efficient than that in the dark condition. The photoinduced antioxidant property is apparently paradoxical compared to the reported phototoxic effect of the vitamin. Our present study unravels a unified picture underlying the difference in character of vitamin B2 under visible light irradiation. UV-vis absorption and fluorescence studies in a number of physiologically relevant nanoscopic environments (micelles and reverse micelles) reveal the antioxidant activity to a well-known oxidative stress marker 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) as well as a phototoxicity effect resulting in self-degradation of the vitamin. Picosecond-resolved Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from the vitamin to the marker DPPH in the biomimetic environments clearly reveals the role of proximity of an oxidizing agent in the photoinduced effect of the vitamin. Our systematic and detailed studies unravel a simple picture of the mechanistic pathway of the photosensitized vitamin in the physiologically important environments leading to the antioxidant/phototoxicity effect of the vitamin. The excited vitamin transfers its electron to the oxidizing agent in proximity for the antioxidant effect, but otherwise it employs oxygen to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), resulting in phototoxicity/self-degradation.