Structure of mutagen nucleic acid complexes in solution. Proton chemical shifts in 9-aminoacridine complexes with dG-dC, dC-dG, and dA-dT-dG-dC-dA-dT

Abstract
The influence of self-complementary oligodeoxynucleotides on the chemical shifts of protons of the mutagenic acridine dye 9-aminoacridine was measured. Upfield shifts indicative of intercalative binding are found in the cases of dG-dC, dC-dG and dA-dT-dG-dC-dA-dT but not in dA-dT. Geometries for the complexes that are compatible with the chemical-shift data and the X-ray structure of the complex between ri5C-rG and 9-aminoacridine determined by Sakore et al. can be identified using recent theoretical estimates of shifts induced by nucleotide bases.