Mimosine metal complexes

The condensation of 3,4-HP with deoxyribonucleotide results in a unique metal-binding nucleotide (55) which can be incorporated into an oligonucleotide chain. This ohgonu-cleotide has higher thermostability in the presence of Cu(II) compared with an A-T pair, wherein Cu(II) binds to 3,4-HP from each strand to form a double helix (56). li en the Fe(II)-mimosine complex is introduced to plasmid DNA, cleavage of the supercoiled form is observed in the presence of H2O2 and dithiothreitol. The observations described in this section point to mimosine (9) and its analogues as the leads for further exploration of their potential application as metal chelators and therapeutics. 

The 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone moiety in the mimosine drug family is responsible for metal binding (Section ni.B.l.c). The structure of a number of such complexes was determined by X-ray crystallography. The 3 1 complexes of 48 with Fe(IIt) , Al(Itl), Ga(III)... 

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