Dinuclear metal complexes for the efficient RNA hydrolysis.

Dinuclear Zn(II) and La(III) complexes with TPHP efficiently hydrolyze a dinucleotide, ApA, under mild conditions (TPHP = N, N, N', N'-tetrakis[(2-pyridyl)-methyl]-2-hydroxy-1,3-diaminopropane). [Zn2(TPHP)]3+ hydrolyzes ApA with an extremely high activity; The pseudo-first-order rate constant is 8.4 x 10(-4) h-1 at pH 7, 50 degrees C when [[Zn2 (TPHP)]3+] = 2.5 mM. Free Zn(II) ion shows no hydrolysis activity under the conditions. Enormous acceleration of the hydrolysis by the dinuclear complex formation was also observed for La(III) ion. Its activity for the ApA hydrolysis is 100-fold greater than that of free La(III) ion. These dinuclear complexes are promising for the active sites of artificial ribonucleases.