State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China.
J Inorg Biochem. 2013 Apr;121:114-20. doi: 10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2012.12.018. Epub 2013 Jan 9.
Copper complexes are potential metallonucleases that may find application in biotechnology and molecular biology. In this study, a ternary copper-terpyridine complex Cu(ttpy)(Gly)(NO3)·H2O (1) (ttpy=4'-p-tolyl-2,2':6,2″-terpyridine) is synthesized and characterized by X-ray crystallography and ESI-MS as an artificial nuclease. Glycine (Gly) is introduced into the complex to enhance the water-solubility and electrostatic affinity for the nucleic acid target. The interaction between complex 1 and DNA has been studied by spectroscopy and gel electrophoresis, using a structural analog [Cu(ttpy)(NO3)2] (2) as the reference. Complex 1 demonstrates an increased DNA binding ability and oxidative cleavage activity towards supercoiled pBR322 DNA as compared with complex 2. The enhanced water-solubility and positive charge of complex 1 may facilitate its access to DNA and formation of hydrogen bonds with the sugar-phosphate backbone. The results indicate that carefully positioned auxiliary groups in a copper complex can significantly affect the substrate binding or activation ability and consequently the nuclease efficiency of the complex.
铜配合物是潜在的金属核酸酶，可能在生物技术和分子生物学中有应用。在这项研究中，合成了一种三元铜-三联吡啶配合物Cu(ttpy)(Gly)(NO3)·H2O（1）（ttpy=4'-对甲苯基-2,2':6,2″-三联吡啶），并用 X 射线晶体学和 ESI-MS 进行了表征，作为一种人工核酸酶。甘氨酸（Gly）被引入配合物中，以提高其水溶性和对核酸靶标的静电亲和力。用结构类似物[Cu(ttpy)(NO3)2]（2）作为参比，通过光谱和凝胶电泳研究了配合物 1 与 DNA 的相互作用。与配合物 2 相比，配合物 1 表现出对超螺旋 pBR322 DNA 的增强的 DNA 结合能力和氧化切割活性。配合物 1 的增强的水溶性和正电荷可能使其更容易进入 DNA 并与糖-磷酸骨架形成氢键。结果表明，在铜配合物中精心定位的辅助基团可以显著影响底物结合或激活能力，从而影响配合物的核酸酶效率。
