Synthesis of the First Tellurium-Derivatized Oligonucleotides for Structuraland Functional Studies

摘要

We report here the first syn-thesis of Te-nucleoside phosphorami-dites and Te-modified oligonucleotides.We protected the 2'-tellurium function-ality by alkylation and found that theTe functionality is compatible withsolid-phase synthesis and that the Teoligonucleotides are stable during de-protection and purification. In addi-tion, the redox properties of the Tefunctionalities have been explored. We found that the telluride and telluoxideDNAs are interchangeable by redox re-actions. At elevated temperature, theTe-DNA can also be site-specificallyfragmented oxidatively or reductivelywhen 2'-TePh functionality is present,whereas elimination of the nucleobaseis observed in the presence of 2'-TeMe.Moreover, the stability of the DNA du-plexes derivatized with the Te function-alities has been investigated. Our Tederivatization of nucleic acids providesa novel approach for investigatingDNA damage as well as for structureand function studies of nucleic acidsand their protein complexes.