The reaction of HO(•) radical with 2'-deoxyguanosine is intensively studied as a model for DNA damage. Several aspects related to the reaction paths responsible for the most relevant lesions are not well understood. We have reinvestigated the reaction of HO(•) with 2'-deoxyguanosine by pulse radiolysis and extended our studies to a variety of substituted derivatives. The main path of hydrogen abstraction was confirmed to be from the exocyclic NH(2) group, followed by a water-assisted tautomerization. The rate constant (k = 2.3 × 10(4) s(-1)) obtained from the spectral changes at 620 nm is influenced by the substituent at the C8 position. When N1-H is replaced by N1-CH(3), the tautomerization does not occur. The spectral changes at 370 nm that correspond to a rate constant of 6.9 × 10(5) s(-1) were assigned to the cyclization of 2'-deoxyguanosin-5'-yl radical with formation of 5',8-cyclo-2'-deoxyguanosine as the product. When NEt(2) replaces the exocyclic NH(2), the spectral changes at all wavelengths follow second-order kinetics, suggesting a "slow" ring-opening of the 8-hydroxyl adduct of 2'-deoxyguanosine.

The excited states of a set of popular sunscreen agents (2-hydroxybenzophenone, oxybenzone, and sulisobenzone) are studied by using femto- and nanosecond time-resolved spectroscopy. Upon excitation, the compounds undergo an ultrafast excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) reaction as the major energy-wasting process and the rate constant of this reaction is k=2×10(12) s(-1) . The ESIPT yields a keto conformer that undergoes a fast, picosecond internal conversion decay. However, a photodegradative pathway is a monophotonic HO bond breakage that subsequently leads to trace yields of phenoxyl radicals. Because potentially harmful phenoxyl radicals are formed upon irradiation of sunscreen agents, care should be taken about their reactivity towards biologically relevant compounds.

The TYT and TXT trimeric oligonucleotides, where X stands for a native nucleobase, T (thymine), C (cytosine), A (adenine), or G (guanine), and Y indicates a brominated analogue of the former, were irradiated with ionizing radiation generated by a (60)Co source in aqueous solutions containing Tris as a hydroxyl radical scavenger. In the past, these oligomers were bombarded with low energy electrons under an ultra-high vacuum and significant damage to TXT trimers was observed. However, in aqueous solution, hydrated electrons do not produce serious damage to TXT trimers although the employed radiation dose exceeded many times the doses used in radiotherapy. Thus, our studies demonstrate unequivocally that hydrated electrons, which are the major form of electrons generated during radiotherapy, are a negligible factor in damage to native DNA. It was also demonstrated that all the studied brominated nucleobases have a potential to sensitize DNA under hypoxic conditions. Strand breaks, abasic sites and the products of hydroxyl radical attachment to nucleobases have been identified by HPLC and LC-MS methods. Although all the bromonucleobases lead to DNA damage under the experimental conditions of the present work, bromopyrimidines seem to be the radiosensitizers of choice since they lead to more strand breaks than bromopurines.

The absorption-spectral and kinetic behavior of radical ions and triplet states of two oxoisoaporphine derivatives, 2,3-dihydrooxoisoaporphine (2,3-DHOA) and 5-methoxy-2,3-dihydrooxoisoaporphine (5-MeO-2,3-DHOA), have been studied by UV-vis spectrophotometric pulse radiolysis in a neat acetonitrile saturated with argon and oxygen at room temperature. The radical anions of 2,3-DHOA and 5-MeO-2,3-DHOA are characterized by intense absorption maxima located at lambda max = 605 and 590 nm, with molar absorption coefficients 605 = 5600 M (-1) cm (-1) and 590 = 4900 M (-1) cm (-1), respectively. Both radical anions decay via first-order kinetics with the rate constants in the range (1.5-2.6) x 10 (5) s (-1), predominantly through protonation by adventitious water forming neutral-hydrogenated radicals. Oxygen insensitive, the radical cations of 2,3-DHOA are characterized by a strong nondescript absorption band with no distinct lambda max in the range 350-450 nm. On the other hand, the radical cations of 5-MeO-2,3-DHOA are characterized by the distinctive absorption band with lambda max = 420 nm. The experimental spectra of the neutral-hydrogenated radicals and the triplet excited states derived from 2,3-DHOA and 5-MeO-2,3-DHOA are in accordance with the spectra observed previously during laser flash photolysis ( De la Fuente, J. R. ; et al. J. Phys. Chem. 2005, 109, 5897 ). Most of the transient spectra generated radiolytically are adequately reproduced by quantum mechanical semiempirical PM3 and ZINDO/S methods.