A paradoxical relationship between Resveratrol and copper (II) with respect to degradation of DNA and RNA [version 2; referees: 2 approved]

Resveratrol (R), a plant polyphenol, is known to reduce Cu (II) to Cu (I) generating reactive oxygen species that can cleave plasmid DNA. Here we report a surprising observation of a paradoxical relationship between R and Cu whereby plasmid DNA cleaving / degrading activity of R-Cu increased progressively as the ratio of R to Cu was increased i.e., the concentration of Cu was successively reduced with respect to a fixed concentration R. Whereas cleavage of plasmid DNA occurred at low molar ratios of R to Cu, at higher ratios, complete degradation of DNA was achieved. By further increasing the ratio, whereby the concentration of Cu was reduced to very low levels, the DNA degrading activity of R-Cu was lost. This paradoxical relationship is also seen with respect to eukaryotic genomic DNA and RNA. Since R-Cu may have anti-cancer and anti-viral activities, our findings may not only help to improve the therapeutic efficacy of R-Cu but also reduce its toxic side effects with the use of low concentration of Cu. Indraneel Mittra ( ) Corresponding author: [email protected] Subramaniam S, Vohra I, Iyer A How to cite this article: et al. A paradoxical relationship between Resveratrol and copper (II) with respect 2016, :1145 (doi: ) to degradation of DNA and RNA [version 2; referees: 2 approved] F1000Research 4 10.12688/f1000research.7202.2 © 2016 Subramaniam S . This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the , Copyright: et al Creative Commons Attribution Licence which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This study was supported by the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India, through its grant CTCTMC to Tata Grant information: Memorial Centre awarded to IM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. 27 Oct 2015, :1145 (doi: ) First published: 4 10.12688/f1000research.7202.1 Referee Status: