1363Riboflavin is a highly photosensitive compound and is degraded in aqueous solution by several mechanisms [1][2][3] including intramolecular photoreduction 4,5) and intramolecular photoaddition. [6][7][8][9] These reactions are affected by pH, 4,5,[10][11][12] solvent polarity and viscosity, 13,14) ionic strength, 15) buffer kind and concentration [6][7][8][9]16) and light intensity and wavelengths. [6][7][8][9]17) Various methods including the use of photostabilizers, incorporation into liposomes and cyclodextrin complexation have been used to stabilize riboflavin solutions in the presence of light. [18][19][20][21] Another approach to achieve stabilization of drugs is through complexation with caffeine and other agents. [22][23][24][25][26] Riboflavin is known to form molecular complexes with caffeine [27][28][29][30][31][32] which has been found to influence the rate of its chemical 33) and photochemical degradation.17) Riboflavin-caffeine complexation may improve the bioavailability 34) and therapeutic activity 35) of the vitamin. NMR studies have been conducted to understand the nature of association between caffeine and flavin mononucleotide 36) that may help in the understanding of the mode of riboflavin stabilization. The present work is based on a detailed study of the kinetics of riboflavin photolysis in the presence of caffeine over a wide range of pH using a specific multicomponent spectrophotometric method 12) for the determination of riboflavin and photoproducts. The kinetic data have been used to determine the stability constants for riboflavin-caffeine complex. The quantitative and kinetic evaluation of such interactions may suggest the possibility of achieving the stabilization of photolabile compounds and thus enhance their biological action. The chemical structures of riboflavin, its photoproducts and caffeine are shown in Fig. 1.
ExperimentalThe materials and methods used are the same as previously described for a similar study.5) The photolysis of 5ϫ10 Ϫ5 M riboflavin (RF) solutions was carried out in the presence of 0.5-2.5ϫ10Ϫ4 M caffeine using a Philips HPLN 125 W high pressure mercury vapor fluorescent lamp (emission at 405 and 435 nm) 9) as the irradiation source. The spectral measurements on RF and degraded solutions were performed on a Shimadzu UV-1601 recording spectrophotometer using silica cells of 10 mm path length. The intensity of the fluorescent lamp was determined by potassium ferrioxalate actinome- The effect of caffeine complexation with riboflavin on the kinetics of riboflavin photolysis in the pH range 2.0-10.5 has been studied. The photolysis of riboflavin solutions (5؋10 ؊ ؊5 M) was carried out in the presence of caffeine (0.5-2.5؋10 ؊ ؊4 M) using a visible radiation source. A specific multicomponent spectrophotometric method was used for the determination of riboflavin and photoproducts in photolysed solutions. The apparent first-order rate constants (k) for the photolysis reactions range from 2.71؋10 ؊4 to 4.26؋10 ؊2 min
Effect of Caffeine Complexation on the Photol...