Exploration of novel candidates for photocontrolled treatment based on curcumin and cyclocurcumins.

Resumen

Cyclocurcumin is a natural compound extracted from turmeric and presenting an interestingsolvent-dependent photoswitching ability. The solvent-dependent photochemistry of cy-clocurcumin has been rationalized on the basis of a competition between π-π* and n-π*states[1]. Furthermore, we have reported the synthesis of a biomimetic analogue showing en-hanced photochemical properties and in particular presenting photoswitching capacity in vari-ous media[2]. In addition, molecular modeling and simulation, including density functionaland wavefunction based methods were used to explore the excited states potential energy sur-face landscape. We realize that with cyclocurcumin, the addition of a carbon-carbon doublebond to the core of the natural compound favors the population of the π-π* state, whatever thechoice of the solvent, and hence leads to photoisomerization, with fluorescence reduced toonly a minor channel comparing with natural derivative