Design and synthesis of an anthranyl bridged optically active dinuclear iron(II)-ligand and evaluation of DNA-cleaving activity

[Display omitted] It is necessary to design a ligand that is compatible with the target molecule to optimally use the DNA-cleaving ability of metal complexes. In this study, we synthesized an optically active dinuclear ligand, (1R,1′R,2R,2′R)-N1,N1′-(anthracene-1,8-diylbis(methylene))bis(N2,N2-bis(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)cyclohexane-1,2-diamine) (R-ABDC, 4a) and its enantiomer (S-ABDC, 4b). We then prepared their Fe(II) complexes by mixing the ligand with FeSO4·7H2O in situ and investigated DNA-cleaving activities using plasmid DNA in the presence of excess sodium ascorbate at atmospheric conditions. The Fe(II) complexes efficiently cleaved DNA and selectively recognized two consecutive A and/or T sequences.