Zinc finger peptide cleavage by a dinuclear platinum compoundElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Experimental details, mass spectral analyses of dinuclear-platinumzinc finger interactions. See DOI: 10.1039/c3cc44219e

Electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and { 1 H, 15 N HSQC} NMR spectroscopy has elucidated the binding of a dinuclear platinum compound to a zinc finger peptide with induced backbone cleavage. Cleavage is selective on the N-terminal side of the cysteine residue following incubation at neutral pH, and is further dependent on structure of dinuclear compound. The platinum-assisted cleavage of the C-terminal HIV NCp7 zinc finger is a novel strategy to inactivate this important biological target.