Hypoxia—a hallmark of solid tumors—makes hypoxic cells radioresistant. On the other hand, DNA, the main target of anticancer therapy, is not sensitive to the near UV photons and hydrated electrons, one of the major products of water radiolysis under hypoxic conditions. A possible way to overcome these obstacles to the efficient radio- and photodynamic therapy of cancer is to sensitize the cellular DNA to electrons and/or ultraviolet...

Degradation mechanism of four brominated nucleobases (BrX), potential DNA radiosensitizers, is studied in explicit water solution, using ab initio molecular dynamics. Several fs long dynamics is needed to localize an electron on the nucleobase. Produced by electron attachment BrX anion radical degrades through the bromide anion abstraction, barrier-free (purines) or with low barrier (pyrimidines), to a reactive nucleobase radical....

In this work, we have synthesized 5-thiocyanato-2′-deoxyuridine (SCNdU) along with the C6-deuterated nucleobase 5-thiocyanatouracil (6-D-SCNU) and studied their reactions with radiation-produced electrons. ESR spectra in γ-irradiated nitrogen-saturated frozen homogeneous solutions (7.5 M LiCl in H2O or D2O) of these compounds show that electron-induced S–CN bond cleavage occurs to form a thiyl radical (dU-5-S˙ or 6-D-U-5-S˙) and...