Acridine is an azaarene.1 It is a scaffold component of many pharmacologically active compounds, including topoisomerase inhibitors and DNA intercalators, as well as compounds with anticancer and antimalarial activities.2,3,4,5 Acridine is also the backbone of some fluorescent probes, such as acridine orange and ICAAc .6,7 It is genotoxic to bacteria when used at a concentration of 50 µg/ml.1
1.Skarek, M., Cupr, P., RÉblova, K., et al.Assessment of toxic and genotoxic effects of N-heterocyclic polyaromatic hydrocarbons with miniaturized in vitro screening bioassays1-4() 2.Nelson, E.M., Tewey, K.M., and Liu, L.F.Mechanism of antitumor drug action: Poisoning of mammalian DNA topoisomerase II on DNA by 4’-(9-acridinylamino)-methanesulfon-m-anisidideProc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA81(5)1361-1365(1984) 3.Fukui, K., Tanaka, K., Fujitsuka, M., et al.Distance dpendence of electron transfer in acridine-intercalated DNAJ. Photochem. Photobiol. B Biol.5018-27(1999) 4.Heald, R.A., Modi, C., Cookson, J.C., et al.Antitumor polycyclic acridines. 8.1 Synthesis and telomerase-inhibitory activity of methylated pentacyclic acridinium saltsJ. Med. Chem.45(3)590-597(2002) 5.Kumar, R., Kaur, M., and Kumari, M.Acridine: A versatile heterocyclic nucleusActa Pol. Pharm.69(1)3-9(2012) 6.Han, J., and Burgess, K.Fluorescent indicators for intracellular pHChem. Revs.110(5)2709-2728(2010) 7.Nagy, M., Racz, D., Nagy, Z.L., et al.Amino-isocyanoacridines: Novel, tunable solvatochromic fluorophores as phystiological pH probesSci. Rep.98250(2019)