Binding of DNA-Intercalating Agents to Oxidized and Reduced Quinone Reductase 2
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Quinone reductase 2 (NQO2) is an enzyme that might have intracellular signaling functions. NQO2 can exist in either an oxidized state or a reduced state, and binding of compounds to one or both of these states inhibits enzymatic activity and could also affect intracellular signaling. A wide range of planar aromatic compounds bind NQO2, and we have identified three DNA-intercalating agents [ethidium bromide, acridine orange (AO), and doxorubicin] as novel nanomolar inhibitors of NQO2. Ethidium and AO, which carry a positive charge in their aromatic ring systems, bound reduced NQO2 with an affinity 50-fold higher than that of oxidized NQO2, while doxorubicin bound only oxidized NQO2. Crystallographic analyses of oxidized NQO2 in complex with the inhibitors indicated that the inhibitors were situated deep in the active site. The aromatic faces were sandwiched between the isoalloxazine ring of FAD and the phenyl ring of F178, with their edges making direct contact with residues lining the active site. In reduced NQO2, ethidium and AO occupied a more peripheral position in the active site, allowing several water molecules to interact with the polar end of the negatively charged isoalloxazine ring. We also showed that AO inhibited NQO2 at a nontoxic concentration in cells while ethidium was less effective at inhibiting NQO2 in cells. Together, this study shows that reduced NQO2 has structural and electrostatic properties that yield a preference for binding of planar, aromatic, and positively charged molecules that can also function as DNA-intercalating agents.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".