Tetrakis-acridinyl peptide: a novel fluorometric reagent for nucleic acid analysis based on the fluorescence dequenching upon DNA binding.

Tetrakis-acridinyl peptide 1 assuming a right-handed helical stacked conformation of the acridinyl units can bind to DNA duplex with a very high affinity of 10(8) (M-bp)(-1) even at a high salt concentration of 0.2 M NaCl, irrespective of the base composition. Peptide 1 gave rise to 1600-times enhancement of its fluorescence upon binding to an AT polymer due to the collapse of this stacked structure, but the fluorescence is not enhanced with a GC polymer, though the binding constants of 1 for both polymers were the same.