N. H. List, J. Knoops, J. Rubio-Magnieto, J. Idé, D. Beljonne, P. Norman, M. Surin, M. Linares

J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 14947

Abstract

Induced circular dichroism (ICD) of DNA-binding ligands is well known to be strongly influenced by the specific mode of binding, but the relative importance of the possible mechanisms has remained undetermined. With a combination of molecular dynamics simulations, CD response calculations, and experiments on an AT-sequence, we show that the ICD of minor-groove-bound 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) originates from an intricate interplay between the chiral imprint of DNA, off-resonant excitonic coupling to nucleobases, charge-transfer, and resonant excitonic coupling between DAPIs. The significant contributions from charge-transfer and the chiral imprint to the ICD demonstrate the inadequacy of a standard Frenkel exciton theory of the DAPI–DNA interactions.