Synthesis and Fluorescence Quenching Study of the Novel Cationic Probe Derived from Luminarosine

A simple and efficient transformation of the zwitterionic luminarosine into a brightly fluorescent cationic analogue, namely 1‐amino‐9‐methoxy‐2,4,10‐triaza‐4b‐azoniaphenanthrene ( 3 ), is reported. The fluorescence quenching of 3 by common nucleotides, calf‐thymus (CT) DNA, and halide ions was investigated by means of spectrophotometric and spectrofluorometric methods. Intermolecular static and dynamic fluorescence‐quenching constants for quenching of 3 by nucleotides and halide ions were determined in aqueous solution. Evidence for formation of nonfluorescent ground‐state complexes of 3 with nucleotides and CT‐DNA is presented. Scatchard analysis of the CT‐DNA quenching data resulted in a binding constant of 2.8×10⁴ M ⁻¹ and a number of binding sites per base pair of 0.049.