Antagonistic activity of hydroxycoumarin-based antioxidants as possible singlet oxygen precursor photosensitizers

Abstract

Coumarins are phenolic-type compounds with efficient antioxidant activity due to their ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species. Nevertheless, their ability to behave as photosensitizers capable of generating reactive oxygen species, such as singlet oxygen, has been less studied. In this work, the photosensitizing ability of seven hydroxycoumarins was evaluated through the photooxidation of ergosterol by quantifying the conversion of ergosterol into ergosterol peroxide. In our experimental conditions, we found that almost every tested antioxidant coumarin promotes the peroxidation of ergosterol. The results suggest that the hydroxycoumarins exhibit potential photosensitizing activity by promoting singlet oxygen generation by a Type II photochemical mechanism. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were also performed to obtain further insight into the chemical reactivity of tested compounds; the observed tendency in the group of antioxidant coumarins to promote the reaction was their hardness due to the principle of maximum hardness. To evaluate our conclusion, we performed the reaction using a highly polarizable coumarin as a photosensitizer, which resulted in an increased photosensitizing capacity supported with DFT calculations, which reinforces our analysis. Finally, we found that hydroxycoumarins can be potentially pro-oxidants since some of them can act as photosensitizers and generate singlet oxygen in the presence of UV–Vis light, a characteristic that must be considered when these compounds are used as antioxidants.