Self-aggregation inhibits the photonuclease activity of porphyrins.

A series of tentacle porphyrins having four aminoalkyl groups at the periphery was synthesized, and the DNA binding properties were investigated by absorption and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopic methods. The aminopropyl chain was found to facilitate binding, and bisignate induced CD spectra revealed that the porphyrins are self-stacked on the DNA surface. The photonuclease activity of the tentacle porphyrins was also studied, and the aminopropylporphyrin showed the highest activity.

Copper insertion facilitates water-soluble porphyrin binding to rA.rU and rA.dT base pairs in duplex RNA and RNA.DNA hybrids.

The binding of the copper(II) complex of water-soluble meso-tetrakis(N-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphyrin (TMPyP) to double-helical polynucleotides has been studied by optical absorption, circular dichroism (CD), and resonance Raman spectroscopic methods. The target polymers were RNA and RNA.DNA hybrids consisting of rA.