In situ reactivity of electrochemically generated semiquinone on Emodin and its Cu/Mn complexes with pyrimidine based nucleic acid bases and calf thymus DNA: Insight into free radical induced cytotoxicity of anthracyclines.

There is enough proof to believe that free-radical intermediates of anthracycline based anticancer agents are involved in different stages of drug action. Subtle therapeutic differences observed in the actions of different anthracyclines largely influence the mechanism of action of the drugs that distinguish one member from another. Redox properties control biological responses related either to the one-electron quinone/semiquinone couple or the two-electron quinone/quinone-dianion couple.

1-Amino-4-hydroxy-9,10-anthraquinone - An analogue of anthracycline anticancer drugs, interacts with DNA and induces apoptosis in human MDA-MB-231 breast adinocarcinoma cells: Evaluation of structure-activity relationship using computational, spectroscopic and biochemical studies.

The X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic properties of 1-amino-4-hydroxy-9,10-anthraquinone (1-AHAQ), a simple analogue of anthracycline chemotherapeutic drugs were studied by adopting experimental and computational methods. The optimized geometrical parameters obtained from computational methods were compared with the results of X-ray diffraction analysis and the two were found to be in reasonably good agreement. X-ray diffraction study, Density Functional Theory (DFT) and natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis indicated two types of hydrogen bonds in the molecule.