Exonuclease III has been shown previously to reveal the binding sites of the antitumor drug cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) on DNA. Pretreatment of the same DNA with the intercalator ethidium bromide causes new platinum binding sites to be detected by the exonuclease III method. In particular, a 5'd(G6-D-G2)3' sequence in a 165-base-pair restriction fragment of plasmid pBR322 becomes a preferr...

DNA stretching in the nucleosome core can cause dramatic structural distortions, which may influence compaction and factor recognition in chromatin. We find that the base pair unstacking arising from stretching-induced extreme minor groove kinking near the nucleosome centre creates a hot spot for intercalation and alkylation by a novel anticancer compound. This may have far reaching implication...

We report here the details of G4-FID (G-quadruplex fluorescent intercalator displacement), a simple method aiming at evaluating quadruplex-DNA binding affinity and quadruplex- over duplex-DNA selectivity of putative ligands. This assay is based on the loss of fluorescence upon displacement of thiazole orange from quadruplex- and duplex-DNA matrices. The original protocol was tested using variou...

Cryptolepine, the main alkaloid present in the roots of Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, presents a large spectrum of biological properties. It has been reported to behave like a DNA intercalator with a preference for GC-rich sequences. In this study, dialysis competition assay and mass spectrometry experiments were used to determine the affinity of cryptolepine and neocryptolepine for DNA structures...

A bifunctional photoinitiator for free radical polymerization, thioxanthone catechol-O,O0diacetic acid, was synthesized, characterized, and compared to photoinitiator parameters of the monofunctional analogue, 2-(carboxymethoxy)thioxanthone. Photophysical studies such as fluorescence, phosphorescence, and laser flash photolysis in addition to photopolymerizations of methyl methacrylate show tha...

DNA glycosylase assays still commonly involve the use of radioactively end-labeled DNA substrates, although in recent years a few nonradioactive methods have been described [1–3]. All reported assays, however, have in common that they are strand cleavage assays. In contrast to DNA glycosylases with inherent strand-scission activity (i.e., DNA glycosylases/AP-lyases), monofunctional DNA glycosyl...

HIV-1 specific HLA-B-restricted CD8+ T cell responses differ from HLA-C-restricted responses in antiviral effectiveness. To investigate possible reasons for these differences, we characterized the frequency and polyfunctionality of immmunodominant HLA-B*57/B5801- and HLA-Cw*07-restricted CD8+ T cells occurring concurrently in nine study subjects assessing IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, IL-2, MIP-1beta, ...

Platinum-based anti-cancer drugs form a major family of cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Cisplatin, the first member of the family, remains a potent anti-cancer drug and exhibits its clinical effect by inducing local DNA kinks and subsequently interfering with DNA metabolism. Although its mechanism is reasonably well understood, effects of intracellular ions on cisplatin activity are left to be ...

Simocyclinone D8 (SD8) is a potent DNA gyrase inhibitor produced by Streptomyces antibioticus Tü6040. The simocyclinone (sim) biosynthetic gene cluster has been sequenced and a hypothetical biosynthetic pathway has been proposed. The tetraene linker in SD8 was suggested to be the product of a modular type I polyketide synthase working in trans with two monofunctional enzymes. One of these monof...

The monofunctional platinum anticancer agent phenanthriplatin generates covalent adducts with the purine bases guanine and adenine. Preferential nucleotide binding was investigated by using a polymerase stop assay and linear DNA amplification with a 163-base pair DNA double helix. Similarly to cisplatin, phenanthriplatin forms the majority of adducts at guanosine residues, but significant diffe...