Fluorescence - Blog Posts
PUMPKIN-SPICED FLUORESCENCE
Inside a pumpkin, seeds don’t need much chlorophyll—the molecule that helps plants convert light into food—because there isn’t a lot of light deep inside the fruit’s flesh. Instead of chlorophyll, the green seeds are chock-full of protochlorophyllide, a highly fluorescent molecule that glows orange-red under ultraviolet light and can be converted into chlorophyll a by an enzyme in the seeds. The enzyme reduces protochlorophyllide to produce chlorophyll when the enzyme encounters light, which occurs only after the seed has left the pumpkin and therefore needs to start producing its own food so it can grow. Helmut Brandl, a science communicator and professor at ETH Zurich, extracted this protochlorophyllide by grinding up pumpkin seeds and mixing them with nail polish remover (bottom row).
Submitted by Helmut Brandl
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Ooh, I love fluorescent compounds! It's a great reward for the long process of synthesis.
How incredible is this compound I made??! It’s an NBD amine, which is fluorescent and used for labeling compounds for fluorescence assays.