Kinetics of Fluorescence Fading of Acridine Orange‐heparin Complexes in Solution

The irreversible photochemical fading of fluorescence of acridine orange‐heparin complexes indicates that fading involves the reaction of a “reactive” excited bound dye dimer with one in the ground state. A kinetic parameter, r“, is derived, which has a constant value over a considerable range of conditions, and which is directly related to rate constants for photophysical and photochemical processes. This parameter appears to be characteristic for heparin and may serve to identify it in the presence of other glycosaminoglycans.