Interaction of 9,10-anthraquinone with adenine and 2'-deoxyadenosine.

Laser flash photolysis has been used for the study of the interaction of 9,10-anthraquinone (AQ) with the DNA base, adenine (A) and its corresponding nucleoside, 2'-deoxyadenosine (dA). This study has provided two very important observations. AQ has been found to support electron transfer in different categories of media, acetonitrile/water on one hand and SDS micelles on other. While in our earlier work 2-methyl 1,4-naphthoquinone was found to undergo a switchover in reactivity (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126 (2004) 10589-10593). Again A and dA are found to behave differently on account of an extra sugar unit, which not only affects the rate of reaction but the reaction pathway has been found to be modified too.