Studies on the toxic interaction mechanism between 2-naphthylamine and herring sperm DNA.

The toxic interaction between 2-naphthylamine (2-NA) and herring sperm deoxyribonucleic acid (hs-DNA) has been thoroughly investigated by UV absorption, fluorescence, and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopic methods. UV absorption result indicates that 2-NA may intercalate into the stack base pairs of DNA during the toxic interaction of 2-NA with DNA. A fluorescence quenching study shows that DNA quenches the intrinsic fluorescence of 2-NA via a static pathway. The studies on effects of ionic strength and anionic quenching rule out electrostatic and groove bindings as the dominant binding modes. Further studies on denatured DNA fluorescence quenching and thermal melting studies confirm that the dominant binding mode of 2-NA-DNA is intercalative binding. A CD spectral study shows that the binding interaction of 2-NA with DNA leads to the disorganization of the neat double-helical structure of hs-DNA.