What is "proflavine"

n. (context organic compound English) A disinfectant, ''acridine-3,6-diamine'', bacteriostatic against many gram-positive bacteria

Proflavine (pron. pro-fla¢vin), also called proflavin and diaminoacridine and bate na bina, is an acriflavine derivative, a disinfectant bacteriostatic against many gram-positive bacteria. It has been used in the form of the dihydrochloride and hemisulfate salts as a topical antiseptic, and was formerly used as a urinary antiseptic.

Proflavine is also known to have a mutagenic effect on DNA by intercalating between nucleic acid base pairs. It differs from most other mutagenic components by causing basepair-deletions or basepair-insertions and not substitutions.

Proflavine absorbs strongly in the blue region at 445 nm (in water at pH 7) with molar extinction coefficient of c. 40,000