We present a new high-throughput screening method for the selection of powerful water-soluble antiradiation compounds. This method, which uses conventional immunoassay techniques, allowed the capacity of a given compound to protect thymidine from irradiation to be evaluated. By applying this assay to an antioxidant library, we showed for the first time that norbadione A, a well-known mushroom pigment, has pronounced atypical antiradiation properties.

A recently reported high-throughput screening strategy has been applied to the rapid selection of new water-soluble antioxidants that display strong protective activities. Based on a competitive immunoassay, a triple-screening procedure was used to evaluate the ability of different compounds to protect thymidine under different oxidative stresses. The pro-oxidant effect of norbadione A in the presence of iron was observed, while some pulvinic acid derivatives proved strongly protective during gamma radiolysis, UV irradiation, and Fenton-like oxidation.

Das permethylierte Analogon 1 des Pilzinhaltsstoffs Norbadion A wurde durch zweifache Suzuki‐Miyaura‐Kupplung des Naphthalindiboronsäureesters 2 mit dem Triflat 3 erhalten. ESI‐MS‐Untersuchungen zufolge sind die Komplexe des Dikaliumsalzes von Norbadion A und von 1 mit Caesium ähnlich stabil, d. h., die Caesium‐Komplexierung erfolgt sehr wahrscheinlich über die Pulvinsäure‐Einheiten beider Verbindungen.