The exploration of efficient DNA cleavage agents is essential for understanding DNA scission, repair, and signal transduction, and may also open scope of chemotherapeutic agents. However, small DNA cleavage molecules exhibit low affinity, poor activity, and low specificity to DNA. Combining with novel carbon materials, graphene oxide (GO) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs) that have unique structural, physical and chemical properties, the DNA cleavage activity of metal complexes were dramatically enhanced. GO and GQDs increased their affinity to DNA, and/or enhanced their activity in oxidizing DNA molecules. The interactions of the conjugate of GO or GQDs with the metal complexes with DNA molecules were investigated using fluorescence spectroscopic (FL) and circular dichroism (CD) studies, gel electrophoresis, and DNA thermal denaturation. Interestedly, the cytotoxicity of the metal complexes was also improved by GO and GQDs. On the basis of these results, the application of GQDs in cancer therapy was explored, and we found that GQDs could unambiguously enhance the nuclease activity and cytotoxicity of anti-cancer drugs, and the function mechanism of GQDs was discussed. The results open up potential applications of GO and GQDs in delivering or enhancing the efficiency of chemotherapeutic agents that work through DNA intercalation.

Novel DNA cleavage systems and their potential application in cancer therapy

248th National Meeting (2014)

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