Photoinduced in situ generation of DNA-targeting ligands: DNA-binding and DNA-photodamaging properties of benzo[c]quinolizinium ions

• Julika Schlosser,
• Olga Fedorova,
• Yuri Fedorov and
• Heiko Ihmels

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 101–117, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.11

• , even under anaerobic conditions. Investigations of the mechanism of the DNA damage revealed the involvement of intermediate hydroxyl radicals and C-centered radicals. Under aerobic conditions, singlet oxygen only contributes to marginal extent to the DNA damage. Keywords: DNA intercalators

• ; heterocycles; photocyclization; photosensitizer; styrylpyridines; Introduction DNA intercalators – most often represented by small planar heteroaromatic compounds – play an important role as chemotherapeutic agents [1][2][3][4]. Specifically, upon intercalation into the DNA double helix such ligands can cause

• intercalators, and some currently applied anticancer drugs actually operate on the basis of intercalation [3]. Hence, several classes of compounds have been established, whose DNA-binding properties can be tailored and fine-tuned for that purpose, for example anthracyclines [5], indolocarbazoles [6], acridines

Anion–π catalysis on carbon allotropes

• M. Ángeles Gutiérrez López,
• Mei-Ling Tan,
• Giacomo Renno,
• Augustina Jozeliūnaitė,
• J. Jonathan Nué-Martinez,
• Javier Lopez-Andarias,
• Naomi Sakai and
• Stefan Matile

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1881–1894, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.140

• dimer 37 decreased by 20%. This complementary decrease supported the formation of complex 41 with decreased electron deficiency. Control experiments with fullerene monomer 22 gave unchanged catalytic activity with intercalators 38 or 40, which suggested that complexes 42 and 43 do not form. The

Synthesis, crystal structures and properties of carbazole-based [6]helicenes fused with an azine ring

• Daria I. Tonkoglazova,
• Anna V. Gulevskaya,
• Konstantin A. Chistyakov and
• Olga I. Askalepova

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 11–21, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.2

• [31], chemical sensors [32], DNA-intercalators [33][34] etc. Besides typical carbohelicenes, heterohelicenes, incorporating one or more heteroaromatic units in the skeleton, have also gained increasing attention [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The presence of heteroatoms (S, N, O, P) in the fused

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

• – binding to several different DNA or RNA structures but for each of them giving a different spectrophotometric response [17][18][19][20][21][22]. Until now we have studied aryl systems which behaved as ds-DNA/RNA intercalators, DNA/RNA groove binders, or nucleobase derivatives. In this work we focused our

• intercalators, particularly those which have substituents protruding into either the major or minor grooves (or both) [29]. For a more detailed structural analysis of the complexes, CD spectroscopy was applied [12][13]. It should be noted that due to the distance between the asymmetric atom and NDI or GCP

• threading intercalation into ds-DNAs at pH 5, while compound 4 at neutral conditions (pH 7) switched to the DNA minor groove binding. As often observed for threading intercalators, compound 4 was selective toward GC-DNA. Intriguingly, compound 4 was at both pH values bound to the ds-RNA major groove, most

Naphthalene diimide–amino acid conjugates as novel fluorimetric and CD probes for differentiation between ds-DNA and ds-RNA

• Annike Weißenstein,
• Myroslav O. Vysotsky,
• Ivo Piantanida and
• Frank Würthner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 2032–2045, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.170

• peptide chain and DNA/RNA interacting aromatic moiety, for instance peptide-based DNA/RNA-intercalators [1][2], as well as many DNA/RNA groove binding small molecules [3][4]. Inspired by these natural examples, the development of novel DNA/RNA targeting synthetic molecules has been in scientific focus for

• molecules can be regarded as threading intercalators. Complexes with DNA/RNA are additionally stabilised by interactions of positively charged side chains. The spectrophotometric response of these compounds showed pronounced differences and was in some cases highly sensitive on ds-polynucleotide composition

Reversible photoswitching of the DNA-binding properties of styrylquinolizinium derivatives through photochromic [2 + 2] cycloaddition and cycloreversion

• Sarah Kölsch,
• Heiko Ihmels,
• Jochen Mattay,
• Norbert Sewald and
• Brian O. Patrick

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 111–124, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.13

• deactivation of a stilbene tyrosine kinase inhibitor by a [2 + 2] photocycloaddition [59]. As the quinolizinium ion has been established as a versatile platform for the development of DNA intercalators [60], we identified styryl-substituted quinolizinium derivatives as a promising basis for the search for

• general showed the characteristic signatures of DNA intercalators. Namely, the negative LD bands of the bound ligands unambiguously revealed an intercalative mode [75][76], whereas the positive ICD bands indicated an essentially perpendicular alignment of the transition dipole moments of the ligands

A heteroditopic macrocycle as organocatalytic nanoreactor for pyrroloacridinone synthesis in water

• Piyali Sarkar,
• Sayan Sarkar and
• Pradyut Ghosh

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 1505–1514, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.152

• apoptotic cells, the investigation of the morphology of nuclei, the direct counting of cultivable bacteria, DNA intercalators, etc. [1][2][3][4]. Pyrrole, another biologically active heterocyclic compound, when fused with acridines affords promising bioactive pyrroloacridinone moieties demonstrating

An overview of recent advances in duplex DNA recognition by small molecules

• Sayantan Bhaduri,
• Nihar Ranjan and
• Dev P. Arya

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 1051–1086, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.93

• the past few years. Keywords: alkylators; antibiotic; anticancer; antineoplastic; antiproliferative; DNA recognition; groove binders; hairpin polyamides; Hoechst 33258; intercalators; Review 1. Introduction DNA is one of the central components of cellular machinery and storage unit of genetic

• guanine bases) to DNA is irreversible and causes permanent stall of transcription leading to cell death. Non-covalent interaction between small molecules and DNA is usually reversible and can further be classified as minor groove binders, intercalators, backbone binders, and major groove binders. There

• (groove binders, intercalators and alkylating agents), which includes both classical DNA binders and new advancements in the recent years (with emphasis on research advances reported in the last five years). For a focused work, we have excluded triplex and quadruplex DNA binders for this review. In

Polarization spectroscopy methods in the determination of interactions of small molecules with nucleic acids – tutorial

• Tamara Šmidlehner,
• Ivo Piantanida and
• Gennaro Pescitelli

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 84–105, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.5

• a.u. may still lead to sufficiently accurate spectra, especially with last-generation instruments, but should be checked for reproducibility); b) induced (I)CD bands could have poor signal-to-noise ratios for, e.g., intercalators or for any weak ICD signals (the sensitivity of standard ECD instruments

Halogen-containing thiazole orange analogues – new fluorogenic DNA stains

• Aleksey A. Vasilev,
• Meglena I. Kandinska,
• Stanimir S. Stoyanov,
• Stanislava B. Yordanova,
• David Sucunza,
• Juan J. Vaquero,
• Obis D. Castaño,
• Stanislav Baluschev and
• Silvia E. Angelova

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 2902–2914, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.283

• valuable properties as nucleic acid stains have made these dyes an irreplaceable tool in the active and developing area of bioanalytical chemical research [9][10]. Cyanine dyes have found various bioanalytical applications as soluble DNA intercalators (e.g., in living cell imaging [11] and flow cytometry

Interactions between cyclodextrins and cellular components: Towards greener medical applications?

• Loïc Leclercq

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2016, 12, 2644–2662, doi:10.3762/bjoc.12.261

A journey in bioinspired supramolecular chemistry: from molecular tweezers to small molecules that target myotonic dystrophy

• Steven C. Zimmerman

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2016, 12, 125–138, doi:10.3762/bjoc.12.14

• better the so-called nearest-neighbor exclusion principle (NEP), wherein intercalators at full saturation of a DNA helix bind every other site (i.e., one intercalator per two base-pairs) [6]. Figure 2a schematically shows how insertion of monointercalators at full saturation leads to a DNA helix with

• effort amounted to a nearly 20-year break from DNA intercalators and molecular tweezers. Ed Fenlon, Tom Murray, and Perry Corbin started investigating DNA base-pair analogs and were later joined by Zhanting Li [52], Taiho Park, Jordan Quinn, and Eric Todd [53][54][55][56]. The goal was to understand the

Beyond catalyst deactivation: cross-metathesis involving olefins containing N-heteroaromatics

• Kevin Lafaye,
• Cyril Bosset,
• Lionel Nicolas,
• Amandine Guérinot and
• Janine Cossy

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2015, 11, 2223–2241, doi:10.3762/bjoc.11.241

• , biologically relevant conditions were selected (rt, t-BuOH/H2O) and CM involving allyl sulfides that contain functional groups commonly found in DNA-intercalators and N-heteroaromatics were investigated. When a quinoline was present on the allylic sulfide, allylic alcohol was found to be the unique suitable

Pyridinoacridine alkaloids of marine origin: NMR and MS spectral data, synthesis, biosynthesis and biological activity

• Louis P. Sandjo,
• Victor Kuete and
• Maique W. Biavatti

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2015, 11, 1667–1699, doi:10.3762/bjoc.11.183

• phenoxazinones [96], makaluvamines [97], acridones, and acridines alkaloids [98] (Figure 19). Ascididemin (42) and meridine (56) were found to behave like DNA intercalators and telomerase inhibitors, respectively [99]. AK37 (59), an ascididemin related compound was the first pyridoacridine able to stabilize the

• DNA-topoisomerase I complex [100] (Figure 19). Moreover, neoamphimedine (12) inhibits the DNA-TOPO IIα with IC50 at 2.0 μM [101]. It was further observed that most cytotoxic pyridoacridines acting as intercalators and inhibitors of TOPO contain both iminoquinone and acridone chemical features. Those

Come-back of phenanthridine and phenanthridinium derivatives in the 21st century

• Lidija-Marija Tumir,
• Marijana Radić Stojković and
• Ivo Piantanida

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 2930–2954, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.312

• RNA dyes. Another large series of phenanthridinium-homodimers was constructed by linking two ethidium bromide subunits by peptide-like linkers of variable flexibility and rich in hydrogen-bonding possibilities within the DNA grooves (Figure 5). The resulting bis-intercalators (in comparison to the

• exhibiting many therapeutic applications. Very extensive results would require a focused review, thus some examples are listed below as outline of the importance. Most of the sanguinarine (20) and chelerythrine (21) derivatives were typical DNA and RNA intercalators [100], some of them showing also

• of the DNA and RNA binding parameters (Table 1) revealed that contrary to the common paradigm about ethidium bromide derivatives as classical ds-DNA and ds-RNA intercalators, here presented results show a large variety of binding modes, very often the same molecule exhibiting more than one binding

Molecular recognition of AT-DNA sequences by the induced CD pattern of dibenzotetraaza[14]annulene (DBTAA)–adenine derivatives

• Marijana Radić Stojković,
• Marko Škugor,
• Łukasz Dudek,
• Jarosław Grolik,
• Julita Eilmes and
• Ivo Piantanida

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2014, 10, 2175–2185, doi:10.3762/bjoc.10.225

• in contrast to the majority of previously studied DBTAA analogues (DNA/RNA intercalators). Only DBTAA–propyladenine conjugates revealed the molecular recognition of AT-DNA by an ICD band pattern > 300 nm, whereas significant ICD bands did not appear for other ds-DNA/RNA. A structure–activity relation