Abstract
Earlier microspectrofluorimetric investigations showed that the capacity of nuclear chromatin in binding acridine orange (AO) was correlated to the functional state of the cells. The variation in the degree of AO binding was shown to reflect structural changes in the deoxyribonucleoprotein (DNP) complex which might be of importance for the regulation of genome activity. These studies have exclusively been performed on cells after fixation. The purpose of the present work was to evaluate the possibility of characterizing the nucleoprotein complex in individual living cells with the AO technique. The UV irradiation used for excitation of fluorescence was then found to strongly influence the uptake of AO in living mouse fibroblasts and was studied in more detail. An increased cellular uptake of AO was found during continuous irradiation. This seemed to be a direct irradiation effect rather than a photodynamic effect of AO. Most of the intracellular AO was bound to nucleoproteins. The augmented AO binding might be due to increased permeability of cell membranes induced by irradiation and/or to labilization of the nucleoprotein complex resulting in liberation of AO binding sites.
Published Version
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