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Mechanism of Action of Antimicrobial and Antitumor Agents pp 141–165Cite as

Ethidium and Propidium

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Part of the book series: Antibiotics ((ANTIBIOTICS,volume 3))

Abstract

Ethidium and propidium (Fig. 1) are phenanthridinium compounds which have attracted a great deal of interest in recent years because of their usefulness as tools for the experimental study of nucleic acids. Of the two ethidium is much the best known since it is readily available and inexpensive, being a well-established drug in widespread use for the chemotherapy of trypanosomiasis. Propidium is not employed in chemotherapeutic practice; it has only recently become of interest for its value in a procedure for the isolation of closed circular duplex DNA (see below). Consequently the bulk of this review will be concerned with ethidium, but reference will be made to the limited information about propidium where possible.

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  1. Michael Waring
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, The Medical and Dental Schools, Northwestern University, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60611, USA

    John W. Corcoran Ph.D.

  2. Department of the Army, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., 20012, USA

    Fred E. Hahn Ph.D.

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Waring, M. (1975). Ethidium and Propidium. In: Corcoran, J.W., Hahn, F.E., Snell, J.F., Arora, K.L. (eds) Mechanism of Action of Antimicrobial and Antitumor Agents. Antibiotics, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-46304-4_10

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