Abstract
Free radicals and related species derived from O2 such as superoxide anion radical (O2-·), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hydroxyl radical (·OH) and peroxynitrite ion (ONOO-) are often generated in organisms with possibly consequent diseases. The enzyme, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalyzes the reaction which eliminates O2-· As models of SOD, manganese porphyrins such as [meso-tetrakis(N-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphyrinato] manganese(III) (MnT4MPyP) have been investigated. However, the half-life of any one of these in the blood is usually quite short. We undertook the design of a novel hexameric manganese porphyrin (HexMnP) capable of remaining for a prolonged period in the blood. The SOD activity of HexMnP (IC50 = 2.1 ± 0.7 μM) was found to be somewhat less than that of MnT4MPyP (IC50 = 0.71 μM), but to exceed that of reconstituted hemoglobin (MnT4MPyP-Hb) (IC50 = 2.0 μM) prepared in a previous study. HexMnP proved to be an effective SOD model in which HexMnP had the capacity to remain over a long period of time in the blood, owing to its molecular diameter of more than 80Å.
