Spectroscopic and electrochemical study of interactions between DNA and different salts of 1,4-dihydropyridine AV-153

PeerJ. 2020 Nov 10:8:e10061. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10061. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

1,4-dihydropyridines (1,4-DHP) possess important biochemical and pharmacological properties, including antimutagenic and DNA-binding activity. The latter activity was first described for water-soluble 1,4-DHP with carboxylic group in position 4, the sodium salt of the 1,4-DHP derivative AV-153 among others. Some data show the modification of physicochemical properties and biological activities of organic compounds by metal ions that form the salts. We demonstrated the different affinity to DNA and DNA-protecting capacity of AV-153 salts, depending on the salt-forming ion (Na, K, Li, Rb, Ca, Mg). This study aimed to use different approaches to collate data on the DNA-binding mode of AV-153-Na and five other AV-153 salts. All the AV-153 salts in this study quenched the ethidium bromide and DNA complex fluorescence, which points to an intercalation binding mode. For some of them, the intercalation binding was confirmed using cyclic voltammetry and circular dichroism spectroscopy. It was shown that in vitro all AV-153 salts can interact with four DNA bases. The FTIR spectroscopy data showed the interaction of AV-153 salts with both DNA bases and phosphate groups. A preference for base interaction was observed as the AV-153 salts interacted mostly with G and C bases. However, the highest differences were detected in the spectral region assigned to phosphate groups, which might indicate either conformational changes of DNA molecule (B form to A or H form) or partial denaturation of the molecule. According to the UV/VIS spectroscopy data, the salts also interact with the human telomere repeat, both in guanine quadruplex (G4) and single-stranded form; Na and K salts manifested higher affinity to G4, Li and Rb -to single-stranded DNA.

Keywords: 1,4-dihydropyridines; AV-153 salts; Circular dichroism; Circular voltammetry; DNA binding; Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy; G-quadruplexes; Spectrofluorimetry.

Grants and funding

The work was supported from the grant of the Latvian Council of Science and an inner grant of the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.