Viscometric analysis of the interaction of bisphenanthridinium compounds with closed circular supercoiled and linear DNA.

The interaction with closed circular supercoiled and linear DNA of bisphenanthridinium compounds substituted through both the meta and para positions of the 6-phenyl group, along with appropriate monomer intercalators as controls, has been investigated by viscometric titration. When CPK models for the phenanthridinium rings of the three bis-compounds are oriented in a parallel manner as a model for intercalation, their ring plane to ring plane distances are approximately 7 to 8 A (SR 2430), 11 A (SR 2193), and 15 A (SR 2166). In SR 2430 the two phenanthridines are linked through the para positions of the 6-phenyl group; this chain allows intercalation of the two rings at adjacent binding sites in DNA, but is not long enough to accommodate an excluded site. The viscometric titrations with both superhelical and linear DNA clearly indicate that SR 2430 gives results close to those of the monomer control compounds while SR 2193 and SR 2166 have approximately twice the unwinding angle and DNA length increase on binding to DNA as the monomer compounds. These phenanthridinium compounds, therefore, are capable of bisintercalation only if their linking groups are of sufficient length to allow an excluded binding site between base pairs. This conclusion is supported by DNA thermal denaturation experiments in the presence of these compounds.