The invention discloses water-soluble
perylene imide compounds, a usage as
a DNA intercalator, and applications thereof in the
growth inhibition of
cancer cells, and belongs to the technical field of
chemical synthesis of
biological drugs. Through inducing cation amino functional groups into
perylene anhydride derivatives and a
perylene mono-anhydride
system, the water
solubility of the perylene anhydride derivatives and the perylene mono-anhydride
system is greatly improved; furthermore, the cation amino functional groups are in a photo-stability combination with
perylene derivatives, and thus a series of novel water-soluble perylene
imide compounds are obtained. The synthesized water-soluble perylene
imide compounds can effectively be embedded between the base pairs of
DNA double
helix of
nucleus and be used as
a DNA intercalator. The synthesized water-soluble perylene imide compounds have a planar
rigid structure, so that the compounds can be specifically enriched around fixed
tissue cell nucleus, the compounds have the advantages of strong
fluorescence and easiness in
fluorescent imaging, and have a similar effect as the
DAPI effect of commercial
cell nucleus dye. The synthesized water-soluble perylene imide compounds can effectively inhibit the growth of
cancer cells such as U2OS, HTC116,
Hela, AGS, etc., and have a very prominent anti-tumor effect.