Stereochemical conversion of nucleic acid circuits via strand displacement. Issue 1 (December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hsieh, Wei-Che; Martinez, Gustavo; Wang, Ashley; Wu, Sharon; Chamdia, Raunaq; Ly, Danith
• Is Part Of: Communications chemistry. Volume 1:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 10
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Subjects: Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540
• DOI: 10.1038/s42004-018-0089-9
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2399-3669

Abstract

Abstract Remarkable accomplishments demonstrating the importance of nucleic acids in molecular engineering and computation have been made over the past two decades. However, much of the work in this area so far has been carried out in vitro, utilizing almost exclusively homochiral D-DNAs (or D-RNAs) as chemical building blocks. Such natural building blocks are prone to enzymatic degradation and cross-hybridization with the host's genetic materials. Here we report the development of an orthogonal nucleic acid system that is made up of a left-handed and a right-handed conformer, and a non-helical peptide nucleic acid analogue. We show that the stereochemical information inherent in the right-handed and left-handed conformers can be interconverted from (R) to (S) and vice versa, along with their helical sense and recognition capability, through strand displacement. The genetic information encoded in these synthetic building blocks can be interfaced with DNA or RNA through a molecular converter. Stereo-inverted oligonucleic acids are promising tools for bioengineering but are limited by low availability of suitable monomers. Here the controlled interconversion of helical screw sense in peptide nucleic acid oligomers is achieved through strand displacement.