Trioxsalen is a furanocoumarin

Furanocoumarin

Furanocoumarins, or furocoumarins, are a class of organic chemical compounds produced by a variety of plants. They are biosynthesized partly through the phenylpropanoid pathway and the mevalonate pathway, which is biosynthesized by a coupling of dimethylallyl pyrophosphate and 7-hydroxycoumarin...

 and a psoralen

Psoralen

Psoralen is the parent compound in a family of natural products known as furocoumarins. It is structurally related to coumarin by the addition of a fused furan ring, and may be considered as a derivative of umbelliferone...

 derivative. It is obtained from several plants, mainly Psoralea

Psoralea

Psoralea is a genus in the legume family . Although most species are poisonous, the starchy roots of P. esculenta and P. hypogaea are edible...

 corylifolia. Like other psoralens it causes photosensitization of the skin. It is administered either topical

Topical

In medicine, a topical medication is applied to body surfaces such as the skin or mucous membranes such as the vagina, anus, throat, eyes and ears.Many topical medications are epicutaneous, meaning that they are applied directly to the skin...

ly or oral

Mouth

The mouth is the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food andsaliva. The oral mucosa is the mucous membrane epithelium lining the inside of the mouth....

ly in conjunction with UV-A (the least damaging form of ultraviolet

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...

 light) for phototherapy treatment of vitiligo

Vitiligo

Vitiligo is a condition that causes depigmentation of sections of skin. It occurs when melanocytes, the cells responsible for skin pigmentation, die or are unable to function. The cause of vitiligo is unknown, but research suggests that it may arise from autoimmune, genetic, oxidative stress,...

 and hand eczema

Eczema

Eczema is a form of dermatitis, or inflammation of the epidermis . In England, an estimated 5.7 million or about one in every nine people have been diagnosed with the disease by a clinician at some point in their lives.The term eczema is broadly applied to a range of persistent skin conditions...

. After photoactivation it creates interstrand cross-link

Crosslinking of DNA

Crosslinks in DNA occur when various exogenous or endogenous agents react with two different positions in the DNA. This can either occur in the same strand or in the opposite strands of the DNA . Crosslinks also occur between DNA and protein...

s in DNA, which can cause programmed cell death

Programmed cell death

Programmed cell-death is death of a cell in any form, mediated by an intracellular program. PCD is carried out in a regulated process which generally confers advantage during an organism's life-cycle...

 unless repaired by cellular mechanisms. In research it can be conjugated to dyes for confocal microscopy

Confocal microscopy

Confocal microscopy is an optical imaging technique used to increase optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by using point illumination and a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-of-focus light in specimens that are thicker than the focal plane. It enables the reconstruction of...

 and used to visualize sites of DNA damage. The compound is also being explored for development of antisense oligonucleotide

Oligonucleotide

An oligonucleotide is a short nucleic acid polymer, typically with fifty or fewer bases. Although they can be formed by bond cleavage of longer segments, they are now more commonly synthesized, in a sequence-specific manner, from individual nucleoside phosphoramidites...

s that can be cross-linked specifically to a mutant mRNA sequence without affecting normal transcripts differing at even a single base pair.