Structural Preorganization of Peptide Nucleic Acids: Chiral Cationic Analogues with Five- or Six-Membered Ring Structures

✍ Scribed by Vaijayanti A. Kumar

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 220 KB
• Volume: 2002
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1434-193X
• DOI: 10.1002/1099-0690(200207)2002:13<2021::aid-ejoc2021>3.0.co;2-9

✦ Synopsis

The advent of aminoethylglycyl peptide nucleic acids, aegPNAs, as strong and specific DNA/RNA binding agents has triggered much research activity directed towards the development of PNA-based antisense/antigene therapeutics. These efforts have mainly been directed towards further refinement of aegPNA properties such as water solubility, cellular uptake and discrimination between parallel and antiparallel binding modes. Introduction of chirality and also of positive/negative charges in the PNA backbone has met with some success in this direction. The conformational freedom in the nucleobase linker arm and in the backbone aminoethyl and glycyl segments in the aegPNA backbone were found to be causes of unfavourable entropic loss during complex formation. Suitable clamping in the aegPNA backbone may reduce entropic loss and help produce a conformation appro-