Syntheses and DNA binding of new cationic porphyrin–tetrapeptide conjugates

Synthesis and Applications of Porphyrin-Biomacromolecule Conjugates

With potential applications in materials and especially in light-responsive biomedicine that targets cancer tissue selectively, much research has focused on developing covalent conjugation techniques to tether porphyrinoid units to various biomacromolecules. This review details the key synthetic approaches that have been employed in the recent decades to conjugate porphyrinoids with oligonucleotides and peptides/proteins. In addition, we provide succinct discussions on the subsequent applications of such hybrid systems and also give a brief overview of the rapidly progressing field of porphyrin-antibody conjugates. Since nucleic acid and peptide systems vary in structure, connectivity, functional group availability and placement, as well as stability and solubility, tailored synthetic approaches are needed for conjugating to each of these biomacromolecule types. In terms of tethering to ONs, porphyrins are typically attached by employing bioorthogonal chemistry (e.g., using phosphoramidites) that drive solid-phase ON synthesis or by conducting post-synthesis modifications and subsequent reactions (such as amide couplings, hydrazide-carbonyl reactions, and click chemistry). In contrast, peptides and proteins are typically conjugated to porphyrinoids using their native functional groups, especially the thiol and amine side chains. However, bioorthogonal reactions (e.g., Staudinger ligations, and copper or strain promoted alkyne-azide cycloadditions) that utilize de novo introduced functional groups onto peptides/proteins have seen vigorous development, especially for site-specific peptide-porphyrin tethering. While the ON-porphyrin conjugates have largely been explored for programmed nanostructure self-assembly and artificial light-harvesting applications, there are some reports of ON-porphyrin systems targeting clinically translational applications (e.g., antimicrobial biomaterials and site-specific nucleic acid cleavage). Conjugates of porphyrins with proteinaceous moieties, on the other hand, have been predominantly used for therapeutic and diagnostic applications (especially in photodynamic therapy, photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy, and photothermal therapy). The advancement of the field of porphyrinoid-bioconjugation chemistry from basic academic research to more clinically targeted applications require continuous fine-tuning in terms of synthetic strategies and hence there will continue to be much exciting work on porphyrinoid-biomacromolecule conjugation.

Interactions of porphyrins with DNA: A review focusing recent advances in chemical modifications on porphyrins as artificial nucleases

The advance of porphyrins as artificial nucleases along the years have developed a class of compounds having potential therapeutic applications. Being an extrovert of chemistry, a variety of chemical modifications have been done on porphyrin macrocycle in order to improve the spectroscopic properties and to adapt as artificial receptors that can recognize molecules. The last twenty years has witnessed broad research in the arena of porphyrin- DNA interactions and their evolution from simple to more complex entities. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in the porphyrin-based structural modifications, with a specific emphasis on various effects of porphyrin on DNA cleavage potency. We particularly detailed the nuclease activity of cationic and anionic porphyrins, porphyrin dimers and conjugates as well as heme proteins till the third generation porphyrins as artificial nucleases.

Bioactivity studies of porphyrinoids against microsporidia isolated from honeybees

Microsporidian infections are dangerous to honeybees due to the absence of an efficient treatment for nosemosis. In the present work, the abilities of several porphyrins to directly inactivate microsporidia derived from Nosema-infected honeybees were studied in vitro. Amide derivatives of protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) conjugated with one and two amino acid moieties were synthesized, and their activities were compared with those of two cationic porphyrins, TMePyP and TTMePP. The most active porphyrins, PP[Lys-Asp]₂, PP[Lys-TFA]₂, PP[Asp(ONa)₂]₂ and PP[Lys-Lys]₂ at concentrations as low as 10–50 µM exerted significant effects on microsporidia, reducing the number of spores by 67–80% compared to the control. Live-cell imaging of the spores treated with porphyrins showed that only 1.6% and 3.0% of spores remained alive after 24 h-incubation with 50 µM PP[Asp(ONa)₂]₂ and PP[Lys-Asp]₂, respectively. The length of the amino acid side chains and their identity in the PPIX molecules affected the bioactivity of the porphyrin. Importantly, the irradiation of the porphyrins did not enhance their potency in destroying Nosema spores. We showed that the porphyrins accumulated inside the living spores but not inside dead spores, thus the destruction of the microsporidia by non-metallated porphyrins is not dependent on photosensitization, but is associated with their active transport into the spore cell. When administered to honeybees in vivo, PPIX[Lys-TFA]₂ and PPIX[Lys-Lys]₂ reduced spore loads by 69–76% in infected individuals. They both had no toxic effect on honeybees, in contrast to zinc-coordinated porphyrin.

DNA-Targeted Inhibition of MGMT

The cationic porphyrin 5,10,15,20-tetrakis (diisopropyl-guanidine)-21H,23H-porphine (DIGPor) selectively binds to DNA containing O⁶ -methylguanine (O⁶ -MeG) and inhibits the DNA repair enzyme O⁶ -methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT). The O⁶ -MeG selectivity and MGMT inhibitory activity of DIGPor were improved by incorporating Zn^II into the porphyrin. The resulting metal complex (Zn-DIGPor) potentiated the activity of the DNA-alkylating drug temozolomide in an MGMT-expressing cell line. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of DNA-targeted MGMT inhibition.

Binding of Metallated Porphyrin-Imidazophenazine Conjugate to Tetramolecular Quadruplex Formed by Poly(G): a Spectroscopic Investigation

The binding of telomerase inhibitor ZnTMPyP(3+)-ImPzn, Zn(II) derivative of tricationic porphyrin-imidazophenazine conjugate, to tetramolecular quadruplex structure formed by poly(G) was studied in aqueous solutions at neutral pH and near physiological ionic strength using absorption and polarized fluorescent spectroscopy techniques. Three binding modes were determined from the dependences of the fluorescence intensity and polarization degree for the porphyrin and phenazine moieties of the conjugate on molar polymer-to-dye ratio (P/D). The first one is outside electrostatic binding of positively charged porphyrin fragments to anionic phosphate groups of the polymer which prevails only at very low P/D values and manifests itself by substantial fluorescence quenching. It is suggested that the formation of externally bound porphyrin dimers occurs. The other two binding modes observed at high P/D are embedding of the ZnTMPyP(3+) moiety into the groove of poly(G) quadruplex accompanied by more than 3-fold enhancement of the conjugate emission, and simultaneous intercalation of the phenazine fragment between the guanine bases accompanied by the increase of its fluorescence polarization degree up to 0.25. Thus Zn(II) conjugate seems to be promising ligand for the stabilization of G-quadruplex structures since porphyrin binding to poly(G) is strengthened by additional intercalation of phenazine moiety.

Spectroscopic Studies on Binding of Porphyrin-Phenazine Conjugate to Four-Stranded Poly(G)

Binding of a novel cationic porphyrin-imidazophenazine conjugate, TMPyP(3+)-ImPzn, to four-stranded poly(G) was investigated in aqueous solutions of neutral pH under near physiological ionic conditions using absorption, polarized fluorescent spectroscopy and fluorescence titration techniques. In absence of the polymer the conjugate folds into stable internal heterodimer with stacking between the porphyrin and phenazine chromophores. Binding of TMPyP(3+)-ImPzn to poly(G) is realized by two competing ways. At low polymer-to-dye ratio (P/D < 6) outside electrostatic binding of the cationic porphyrin moieties of the conjugate to anionic polynucleotide backbone with their self-stacking is predominant. It is accompanied by heterodimer dissociation and distancing of phenazine moieties from the polymer. This binding mode is characterized by strong quenching of the conjugate fluorescence. Increase of P/D results in the disintegration of the porphyrin stacks and redistribution of the bound conjugate molecules along the polymer chain. At P/D > 10 another binding mode becomes dominant, embedding of TMPyP(3+)-ImPzn heterodimers into poly(G) groove as a whole is occurred.

Self assembled nanocages from DNA–protoporphyrin hybrid molecules

DNA–organic hybrid molecular building blocks are generated by covalent conjugation of the carboxyl groups of protoporphyrin IX with the amine functional groups of modified DNA oligomers.

Synthesis, characterization and biomolecule-binding properties of novel tetra-platinum(ii)-thiopyridylporphyrins

New tetra-platinum(ii)-thiopyridylporphyrin complexes and their DNA binding studies.

Porphyrins functionalized by quaternary pyridinium units

In this review, free-base and metalloporphyrins, functionalized on meso-positions by quaternary pyridinium units, also referred to as cationic porphyrins, are presented. The article consists of five parts. In the first part free-base porphyrins are described, especially taking account on generation of singlet oxygen; next parts concern metalloporphyrins. The second and third parts deal with zinc and manganese porphyrins, respectively; in the fourth part copper, palladium, and platinum porphyrins are presented. In the fifth part, describing porphyrins with various metal ions an attention is paid to porphyrin metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and metal-organic materials (MOMs) in which metalloporphyrins are immobilized; syntheses and characterization of obtained products are shown.

Synthesis and DNA photocleavage studies of novel porphyrin diarylthiazoles

A convenient and regioselective synthesis of porphyrin diarylthiazoles is reported via the reactions of alkynyl(aryl)iodonium tosylates and porphyrin thioamides. Among the synthesized porphyrin diarylthiazoles, compounds 6d and 6f have shown significant interactions with ctDNA and exhibited efficient DNA photocleavage.

A three-layer ONIOM model for the outside binding of cationic porphyrins and nucleotide pair DNA

In this work we investigated the outside binding mode between a cationic porphyrin and a nucleotide pair of DNA, adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine, in a supramolecular assembly. We used two structural models (semi-extended, extended) that differ in the size of porphyrin, two kinds of theoretical methods: a three layer ONIOM (B3LYP/6-31G(d)/PM3/UFF), and DFT B3LYP/6-31G(d,p), and three cationic porphyrins. ONIOM method was first tested on the semi-extended model that was calculated in four environments: gas phase, solution phase using an explicit solvent model (H(2)O), in the presence of a sodium cation (Na(+)) and in both (H(2)O + Na(+)). From interaction energy results, we found that the affinity of the cationic substituent by the adenine nucleotide is favored upon the thymine nucleotide. The extended model that considers the whole porphyrin was applied in the gas phase to the four nucleotides. All the cationic porphyrins showed affinity by the nucleotides in the order adenine > guanine > thymine > cytosine. The interaction energy values for outside binding showed a strong porphyrin-nucleotide interaction (≈-90 kcal mol(-1)), that slightly varies between the nucleotides suggesting that this kind of cationic porphyrin has a little selectivity for some of them. We also found that the effect of the nature of the cationic substituent (chain length) in the porphyrin on the outside binding is small (≈2-13 kcal mol(-1)). Coherence between the results showed that ONIOM is a useful tool to get a reasonable molecular geometry to be used as a starting point in calculations of density functional theory.