成功合成并通过X射线单晶衍射进行了表征一种新型的四核铜（II）配合物（简称TNC）。通过紫外可见吸收滴定、荧光技术和分子对接的方法研究了该配合物与小牛胸腺DNA（CT-DNA）的相互作用。结果表明，TNC可以通过穿插模式与DNA结合。琼脂糖凝胶电泳实验证明，TNC可以将超螺旋质粒DNA切割成线性DNA。对TNC在四种癌细胞系（MCF7、A549、4T1和HepG2）中的抗癌活性进行了测试，结果显示TNC对上述所有细胞系均具有显著的活性。本文受英国皇家化学学会版权所有。

A novel tetranuclear Cu(ii) complex (TNC) was successfully synthesized and characterized by X-ray single crystal diffraction. The interaction of the complex with calf thymus DNA (CT-DNA) has been studied by UV-vis absorption titration, fluorescence technology and molecular docking. The results indicated that TNC could bind to the DNA through an intercalative mode. The agarose gel electrophoresis experiment showed that TNC could cleave supercoiled plasmid DNA into linear DNA. The anticancer activity of TNC was tested on four cancer cell lines: MCF7, A549, 4T1 and HepG2. The results indicated that TNC shown significant activity against all of above cell lines.This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.