Interaction of anthracyclines with nucleotides and related compounds studied by spectroscopy

Interaction of the antitumour anthracyclines with mononucleotides and related compounds can be assessed through the perturbation of the spectral properties of the drugs. Purine-derived compounds induce spectral changes more efficiently than pyrimidine derivatives. No marked differences are observed when mono-, di- or triphosphate derivatives, deoxy forms, nucleosides or free nitrogen bases are used for the experiments. Visible absorbance data indicate the existence of a drug/purine nucleotide complex in solution. Assuming a simple equilibrium, this complex would be of low affinity (Keq 100 M-1). Circular dichroism spectra of daunomycin in the presence of ATP suggest that the resulting daunomycin/ATP complexes are not comparable to those formed by intercalation of the anthracycline into DNA. 31P-NMR of ATP in the presence of daunomycin does not support the notion that anthracycline/nucleotide complex formation involves interaction through the phosphate group(s) of the nucleotide. Analysis of the quenching of the drug's intrinsic fluorescence in the presence of nucleotides indicates a predominantly collisional, dynamic quenching mechanism. Values in the 2-6 mM and 85-100 mM range, respectively, are estimated for the reciprocal of the Stern-Volmer quenching constant for a variety of purine and pyrimidine derivatives. This indicates that purine derivatives are highly efficient quenchers of the fluorescence of anthracyclines, while pyrimidine derivatives are not. The fluorescence lifetime of daunomycin in the absence of quencher and the Stern-Volmer quenching constants obtained for different nucleotides are used to calculate the apparent bimolecular rate constants for collisions between fluorophore and quencher to occur. Values of (2-3) X 10(11) and 1 X 10(10) M-1 X s-1 are obtained, respectively, for purine and pyrimidine derivatives. This suggests a combination of static and dynamic quenching processes for purine compounds, which is consistent with the drug/purine nucleotide complex formation detected by visible absorbance. Because of the high intracellular concentration of certain nucleotides, particularly ATP, the above processes are predicted to be highly significant 'in vivo'.