Kinetics of decrease and apparent transformation of fluorescence spectra of benzo(a)pyrene absorbed by living cells: case of lymphocytes and macrophages]

A home made microspectrofluorimeter is used in order to follow the decrease of fluorescence intensity of Benzo(a)Pyrene after its absorption by single living cells. The kinetics look to be a first order one; fluorescent metabolite can be detected when peritoneal macrophages of Mice are used but not with human periferic lymphocytes pretreated with mitogens.