Naphthalene diimides with one or two centrosymmetric arylethynyl moieties capable of synergic donor and acceptor hydrogen bonding exhibit promising binding properties and selectivity towards parallel G-quadruplex (G4) nucleic acids (c-myc, bcl-2 and parallel hTel22). The hydrogen-bonding network involving the phosphate backbone and outside rim of the G-quartet represents an opportunity to exploit G4
2,7-Diaryl ethynyl anthraquinones have been synthesized by Sonogashira cross-coupling and evaluated as telomeric G-quadruplex ligands, with good G-quadruplex/duplex selectivity.
G4 ligand QuinoneMethideprecursors. A new family of G-quadruplex alkylating compounds able to generate quinonemethides (QM) through photochemical activation has been designed and synthesized. In the presence of the human telomeric sequence, ammonium salt precursors showed the ability to generate mono- and crosslinking products identified both by gel and MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry analysis.