Nitracrine is a 1-nitroacridine derivative and is an effective hypoxia-selective agent in vitro and antitumor drugs. Nitracrine suppresses RNA synthesis and covalently, reversibly binds to DNA but also forms covalent adducts with DNA in vivo. Nitracrine has cytotoxicity towards most cells.

Under illumination after 1 hour of cell incubation, Nitracrine has LD50s of 0.23 μM, 0.6 μM, 0.16 μM in P388 cell, NIH3T3 cell, and K562 cells, respectively. Nitracrine (2 μM; 1 hour) induces the death of 50% of human erythroleukemia K562 cells under illumination for 48 min. While it is 8.5 hours for Nitracrine in the dark [3].