Core-Extended Naphthalene Diimide Dyads as Light-Up Probes with Targeted Cytotoxicity Toward Tumor Cells.

ABSTRACT: Within the framework of rational drug design, this study introduces a novel approach to enhance the specificity of small molecules in targeting cancer cells. This approach starts from the use of dyads merging into a single entity, a naphthalene diimide (NDI) and core-extended NDI (ceNDI), both known as G-quadruplex (G4) ligands and fluorescent probes. The strategy aims to leverage the unique diagnostic strengths of the ceNDI moiety featuring red emission by improving its binding affinity and target selectivity through inclusion in dyads built with different linkers. The newly developed NDI-ceNDI dyads are promising probes, as they exhibit fluorescence turn-on upon DNA recognition and induced circular dichroism signals dependent on DNA conformation. Both dyads have an excellent affinity for

SUBMITTER: Pirota V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11852925 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature