Preferred orientation in an angled intercalation site of a chloro-substituted Λ-[Ru(TAP)2(dppz)]2+ complex bound to d(TCGGCGCCGA)2.

Preferred orientation in an angled intercalation site of a chloro - substituted lambda - [ Ru ( TAP ) 2 ( dppz ) ] 2 + complex bound to d ( TCGGCGCCGA

To intercalate or semiintercalate, or both?

C omplexes of ruthenium have recently entered clinical trials owing to their potent anticancer activity (1), and those that are photoactive have shown great promise over the past 4 decades in a variety of applications that involve their interaction with DNA, including sensing, signaling, diagnostics, and therapeutics (2, 3). Numerous publications have appeared that focus on the determination of...

Monitoring guanine photo-oxidation by enantiomerically resolved Ru(II) dipyridophenazine complexes using inosine-substituted oligonucleotides.

The intercalating [Ru(TAP)2(dppz)](2+) complex can photo-oxidise guanine in DNA, although in mixed-sequence DNA it can be difficult to understand the precise mechanism due to uncertainties in where and how the complex is bound. Replacement of guanine with the less oxidisable inosine (I) base can be used to understand the mechanism of electron transfer (ET). Here the ET has been compared for bot...

Controlled dehydration of a ruthenium complex-DNA crystal induces reversible DNA kinking.

Hydration-dependent DNA deformation has been known since Rosalind Franklin recognized that the relative humidity of the sample had to be maintained to observe a single conformation in DNA fiber diffraction. We now report for the first time the crystal structure, at the atomic level, of a dehydrated form of a DNA duplex and demonstrate the reversible interconversion to the hydrated form at room ...

Guanine Can Direct Binding Specificity of Ru–dipyridophenazine (dppz) Complexes to DNA through Steric Effects

X-ray crystal structures of three Λ-[Ru(L)2 dppz]2+ complexes (dppz=dipyridophenazine; L=1,10-phenanthroline (phen), 2,2'-bipyridine (bpy)) bound to d((5BrC)GGC/GCCG) showed the compounds intercalated at a 5'-CG-3' step. The compounds bind through canted intercalation, with the binding angle determined by the guanine NH2 group, in contrast to symmetrical intercalation previously observed at 5'-...