Interaction between double helix DNA fragments and the new antitumor agent sabarubicin, Men10755

Abstract Among the disaccharide derivatives of the antitumor anthracycline doxorubicin, sabarubicin (Men10755) is more active and less cytotoxic than doxorubicin. It showed a strong in vivo antitumor activity in all preclinical models examined, in conjunction with a better tolerability, and is now in phase II clinical trials. The interaction of sabarubicin and Men10749 (a similar disaccharide with a different configuration at C-4′ of the proximal sugar) with the hexanucleotides d(CGTACG) 2 and d(CGATCG) 2 was studied by a combined use of 2D- 1 H and 31 P NMR techniques. Both 1 H and 31 P chemical shifts of imino protons and phosphates allowed to established the intercalation sites between the CG base pairs, as it occurs for other anthracyclines of the series. The dissociation rate constants ( k off ) of the slow step of the intercalation process were measured for Men10755 and Men10749, by NMR NOE-exchange experiments. The increase of k off , with respect of doxorubicin, showed that the intercalation process is significantly faster for both drugs, leading to an average residence time for sabarubicin into d(CGTACG) 2 sixfold shorter than for doxorubicin. This could give account of both higher cytoplasmic/nuclear ratio and lower cellular uptake of sabarubicin in comparison with doxorubicin and accordingly of the lower cytotoxicity of these disaccharide analogues. A relevant number of NOE interactions allowed the structure of the complexes in solution to be derived through restrained MD calculations. NMR-DOSY experiments were performed with several drug/oligonucleotide mixtures in order to determine the structure and the dimension of the aggregates.