A New and Unusual Pathway for the Reaction of Neocarzinostatin Chromophore with Thiols. Revised Structure of the Protein-Directed Thiol Adduct

Abstract

Neocarzinostatin (holo-NCS) is an antitumor antibiotic comprising a nonprotein chromophore component (1) and a 113- amino acid carrier protein (apo-NCS). Goldberg and coworkers first demonstrated that the reaction of the isolated chromophore (1) with thiols in the presence of double-stranded DNA leads to DNA cleavage by a free-radical mechanism. The pathway shown in Scheme 1 was later proposed to account for this activity, a proposal that is now supported by a considerable body of evidence. In 1992, Saito and co-workers showed that the reaction of holo-NCS with small thiols, such as β-mercaptoethanol (BME), takes a different course, to form a product that is formally a 1:1:1 adduct of thiol, 1, and water. Structure 2 was proposed for this adduct, along with the mechanistic pathway shown in Scheme 2. Complicating the analysis was the fact that 2 was an inseparable mixture of two components, present in equal parts.