A theoretical study of acriflavin-DNA binding.

A theoretical study of binding behaviour of acriflavin, a well-known mutagen, with DNA base pairs such as AT, GC, TA and CG has been performed using CNDO/2 method to compute net atomic charges and dipoles located at various centres in acriflavine as well as base pairs. Acriflavine-DNA base pair interactions have been evaluated using second order perturbation method with multicentered multipole approximation. Only minimum energy configurations have been reported. Results have been discussed with a view to obtain a comparative behaviour of other similar dyes like proflavine and acridine orange.