High yield preparation of purpurin-18 from Spirulina maxima

Purpurin-18, a derivative of chlorophyll, is an interesting dihydroporphyrin for generating photosensitizers such as purpurinimides which absorb light in the 700–850 nm range and which display efficient anti-tumor activity. To promote extensive utilization of Pp-18 as a starting material for the preparation of new photosensitizers, a simple and rapid method for obtaining this chlorin in high yield from Spirulina maxima is described. Optimized experimental conditions were determined using a Latin square design of experiments.