© 2005 Oxford University Press
DNA Recognition and Recognition Control of
-Peptide Ribonucleic Acids by External Factors
1 Department of Applid Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Yamada-oka, Suita 565-0871, Japan, 2 PRESTO, JST, Yamada-oka, Suita 565-0871, Japan, 3 ICORP Entropy Control Project, JST, 4-6-3 Kamishinden, Toyonaka 565-0085, Japan
Peptide ribonucleic acid (PRNA) is one of artificial nucleic acids, which enables us to control its nucleobase orientation and recognition behavior by external factors through the synergetic effects of reversible borate ester formation and intramolecular hydrogen bond formation. In this study, a series of novel
-PRNA oligomers, possessing alternative
-PRNA/basic amino acid sequences, were newly designed, synthesized, and evaluated as the second-generation PRNA. As expected, these
-PRNAs indeed formed highly stable sequence-specific complexes with the complementary DNAs, for which both the conventional hydrogen-bonding interactions between the complementary nucleobase pairs and the electrostatic interactions between the basic amino acid's ammonium cation and the DNA's phosphate anion on the backbone are jointly responsible.