Naphthalene diimide bis-guanidinio-carbonyl-pyrrole as a pH-switchable threading DNA intercalator

• Poulami Jana,
• Filip Šupljika,
• Carsten Schmuck and
• Ivo Piantanida

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 2201–2211, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.185

• naphthalene diimde analogue (NDI) equipped at the imide positions with two guanidinio-carbonyl-pyrrole (GCP) pendant arms interacted significantly stronger with ds-DNA at pH 5 than at pH 7, due to reversible protonation of the GCP arms. This was consequence of a pH-switchable threading intercalation into ds

• the DNA/RNA conjugate NDI-GCP2 showed also aggregation along the ds-polynucleotide and AFM and DLS demonstrated that NDI-GCP2 has pronounced ds-DNA condensation ability. Keywords: AFM; circular dichroism; DNA/RNA recognition; fluorescence; guanidinio-carbonyl-pyrrole; naphthalene diimide

• and 115 nm at ratios of r = 0.1 and 0.5, respectively. Higher ratios resulted in even larger particle size, which eventually ended in precipitation. Conclusion We designed and synthesized a novel naphtalene diimide analogue equipped at imide positions with two guanidinio-carbonyl-pyrrole (GCP) pendant