The possible role of electron-transfer complexes in the antitumour action of amsacrine analogues

Abstract

Amsacrine is a DNA intercalating agent which is active against a number of tumours in mice and is used for the treatment of leukaemia in humans. In its DNA-bound form, amsacrine efficiently quenches the fluorescence of ethidium. Fluorescence lifetime studies demonstrate two populations of DNA-bound ethidium. The first, whose fluorescence lifetime is constant at approx. 3 ns and whose proportion increases with increasing amsacrine binding ratio, may comprise molecules bound in close proximity to amsacrine. The second, whose fluorescence lifetime is longer and variable (10–24 ns) and whose proportion decreases with increasing amsacrine binding ratio, may comprise molecules three or more base-pairs away from ethidium. Studies with a number of derivatives of 9-anilinoacridine containing different anilino substituents suggest that the observed wide variation in quenching capacity is correlated with the magnitude of the substituent dipole moment in a particular direction. Consideration of the geometry of the DNA-binding complex indicates that the negative pole of a dipole established in the anilino ring is directed towards a positively charged site on the ethidium molecule. Quenching of ethidium fluorescence may therefore occur where an electron-transfer complex has formed between ethidium and amsacrine molecules. To ascertain whether electron-transfer complex formation is biologically important in the amsacrine series, ethidium quenching has been quantitated and compared with activity against a transplantable neoplasm in mice, the Lewis lung carcinoma. Compounds which strongly quench ethidium fluorescence are in general highly active antitumour agents. The results are discussed in terms of a model where amsacrine has both a DNA-binding and a protein-binding domain, the latter possibly interacting by formation of an electron- transfer complex. The most likely protein-binding domain is on the enzyme topoisomerase II, the target for its cytotoxic activity.