Unveiling interactions between DNA and cytotoxic 2-arylpiperidinyl-1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives: A combined electrochemical and computational study

Christian Espinosa-Bustos*, Camila Canales, Galo Ramírez, Pablo Jaque, Cristian O. Salas

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Three 2-arylpiperidinyl-1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives were synthesized and evaluated in vitro to determine their cytotoxicity on cancer and normal cell lines. In order to establish their possible action mechanism, the electrochemical behaviour of these quinones was examined using cyclic voltammetry (CV) as technique by using a three-electrode setup: a glassy carbon, Ag/AgCl (in 3 M KCl), and platinum wire as working, reference, and counter electrodes, respectively. Kinetic studies were done to determine the control of the reduction reaction and the number of transferred electrons in the process. Furthermore, the addition of dsDNA to the quinone solutions allowed for the observation of an interaction between each quinone and dsDNA as the current-peaks became lower in presence of dsDNA. Otherwise, motivated to support the aforementioned results, electronic structure calculations at the TPSS-D3/6-31+G(d,p) level of theory were carried out in order to find the most favourable noncovalently bonded complexes between quinones and DNA. Noncovalent complexes formed between DNA and 2-arylpiperidinyl-1,4-naphthoquinones and stabilized by π-stacking interactions along with the well-known hydrogen-bonded complexes were found, with the former being more stable than the latter. These results suggest that the intercalation of these quinone derivatives in DNA is the most likely action mechanism.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2233-2244
Number of pages12
JournalArabian Journal of Chemistry
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of FONDECYT (project 1161816 ) and the Millennium Nucleus of Chemical Processes and Catalysis (ICM - 120082 ). C. Espinosa-Bustos would like to thank FONDECYT (Postdoctoral fellowship 3150198).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 King Saud University

Other keywords

  • Computational study
  • Cytotoxicity
  • DNA interaction
  • Electrochemistry
  • Naphthoquinone derivatives

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