Proposed Synthetic Route and Molecular Docking Studies of Click-Based Dual Fluorescent Probes for the Ratiometric Detection of G4 DNA

摘要

G-quadruplexes (G4) are four stranded G-rich DNA structures that have been found to play an important role in telomere maintenance and gene promoter regions. Numerous small molecule ligands have been developed as fluorescence probes to detect and understand G4. However, there is still a need for probes that exhibit high selectivity towards G4 DNA as well as improved quantitative fluorescence detection methods of these G4 structures. Here, a synthetic route is proposed for the development of 2,3-naphthalimide click-based probes to be used for the ratiometric detection of G4 DNA. Additionally, a combination of molecular docking studies is reported to explore the ligand-DNA interactions and ligand orientation regarding dual fluorescent properties.