Photoinduced DNA Cleavage Using Bioinspired Photostable Flavin Analogues

Abstract Inspired by the photosensitization capability of the naturally occurring flavin derivatives, viz. riboflavin (RF), flavin mononucleotide (FMN), flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and their photodegradation susceptibility due to the presence of ribityl/phosphate group; the current manuscript investigates the N10‐modified flavin analogues for their reactive oxygen species (ROS) generating capability and DNA cleavage activity, when irradiated with blue light. The effectiveness of superoxide anion generating property of photoexcited flavin analogs were determined using nitro blue tetrazolium (NBT) and gallic acid quenching experiments. Among the flavin analogues studied, the simple propylflavin ( PFl ) was found to be most photostable and efficient in the conditions studied. The carboxyl‐flavin ( 10Flc ) displays behavior like that of FMN while the flavin‐aspartic acid conjugate ( FA ) was found to show properties in between the PFl and the 10Flc .