Avance 3 ultrashield plus spectrometer

All reactions were performed under an argon atmosphere and anhydrous solvents were used, unless otherwise stated. In flash liquid chromatography purifications, Merck silica gel 60 (0.06–0.2 mm) was used. Final purification of ligands 10, 13 and 14 was carried out in XBridge BEH C18 OBD column, on a Waters 1525EF semi-preparative HPLC system (Milford, MA, USA), equipped with autosampler, diode array detector and fraction collector. NMR spectra were obtained on a Bruker Avance III Ultrashield Plus spectrometer (Billerica, MA, USA), at 500 MHz for ¹H-NMR and 125 MHz for ¹³C-NMR, at 25 °C, chemical shifts relative to tetramethylsilane. MS data were collected on a Bruker Autoflex III Smartbeam MALDI-TOF/TOF instrument (Billerica, MA, USA). UV spectra were recorded on a Jenway 6715 UV-Vis Spectrophotometer (Stone, UK). All DNA sequences used were purchased from Eurogentec (Liège, Belgium) as synthetic oligonucleotides, purified by HPLC and dialysis. Graphs were constructed and data fitting was carried out in OriginPro 8.0 (Northampton, MA, USA).

Nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H- and DEPTQ ¹³C-NMR) spectra were recorded on a Bruker Avance III Ultrashield Plus spectrometer (¹H, 500 MHz; DEPTQ, 125 MHz, Bruker, Rheinstetten, Germany) using DMSO-d₆ as the solvent and tetramethylsilane (TMS) as the internal standard. Fourier-transformed infrared spectra (FT-IR) (ATR) were recorded on a Bruker Vertex 70 spectrophotometer. The elemental analyses were carried out with a Carlo Erba EA-1110 CHNS-O Elemental Analyzer (Elemental Microanalysis, New Jersey, NJ, USA). The melting points were determined on a Gehaka (PF1500 Farma, São Paulo, SP, Brazil) capillary melting point apparatus and uncorrected. The microwave-assisted organic reactions were performed in a CEM Discovery System reactor (CEM Corporation, North Carolina, NC, USA).
Human acute lymphocytic leukemia (Jurkat cells) were generously provided by Professor Ana Giannini from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, RJ, Brazil) and HTLV-1 transformed cell lines (MT-2 and C91/Pl) were a gift from the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, RJ, Brazil. All cells were used and cultured in Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI)-1640 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine solution (FBS) (Gibco/Thermo Fisher), 60 mg/mL penicillin and 100 mg/mL streptomycin (LGC, Brazil). They were incubated at 37 °C in a humidified atmosphere of air and 5% CO₂. The cell line was passaged twice a week.

All the chemicals and reagents were supplied by Acros Organics, Merck, Sigma-Aldrich, or QReC and used without further purification. Melting point analysis was carried out by open capillaries using Electrothermal melting point apparatus (UK). ¹H-NMR and ¹³C-NMR spectra of the compounds were recorded on BRUKER AVANCE III ULTRASHIELD PLUS spectrometer at 500 and 125 MHz, respectively (Supporting Information). Deuterated solvents of different choices based on the solubility of compounds were used. Chemical shifts are given in δ scale (ppm) and tetramethylsilane (TMS) was used as internal reference. Nominal mass spectra of selected compounds were analyzed on LcQ Finnigan MAT mass spectrometer with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) as a probe.