Spectrophotometric determination of acidity constants of 4-dedimethylamino sancycline (Col-3), a new antitumor drug.

A spectrophotometric technique was used to determine the acidity constants of 4-dedimethylamino sancycline (Col-3), a new antitumor drug. The apparent pKa values of Col-3 in 0.5% methanol aqueous media at approximately 25 degrees C with a constant ionic strength of 0.2 were calculated manually and graphically to be 5.64 +/- 0.17 (pKa1) and 8.35 +/- 0.07 (pKa2). In addition, the computer program SQUAD was used to confirm Col-3 pKa values. The pKa values obtained by SQUAD were pKa1 5.63 +/- 0.14 and pKa2 8.39 +/- 0.04. These results are in agreement with the tetracycline-like structure of Col-3.