Verteporfin

Verteporfin is a photosensitizer used during photodynamic therapy to eliminate abnormal blood vessels in the eye that are associated with conditions such as macular degeneration. It accumulates in these abnormal blood vessels and, when activated by nonthermal red light with a wavelength of 693 nm in the presence of oxygen, produces a highly reactive short-lived singlet oxygen and other reactive oxygen radicals, generating local damage to the endothelium and vessel occlusion.¹ Verteporfin can also inhibit autophagosome formation by directly targeting and modifying p62, a scaffold and adaptor protein that binds both polyubiquitinated proteins destined for degradation and LC3 on autophagosomal membranes.²

WARNING This product is not for human or veterinary use.

1. Schmidt-Erfurth, U., and Hasan, T. Mechanisms of action of photodynamic therapy with verteporfin for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration. Surv. Ophthalmol. 45(3), 195-214 (2000).

2. Donohue, E., Balgi, A.D., Komatsu, M., et al. Induction of covalently crosslinked p62 oligomers with reduced binding to polyubiquitinated proteins by the autophagy inhibitor verteporfin. PLoS One 9(12), 1-30 (2014).

Chen, Y., Lear, T.B., Evankovich, J.W., et al. A high-throughput screen for TMPRSS2 expression identifies FDA-approved compounds that can limit SARS-CoV-2 entry. Nat. Commun. 12(1), 3907 (2021).

Roulis, M., Kaklamanos, A., Schernthanner, M., et al. Paracrine orchestration of intestinal tumorigenesis by a mesenchymal niche. Nature 580(7804), 524-529 (2020).