LNA (Locked Nucleic Acids): Synthesis of the adenine, cytosine, guanine, 5-methylcytosine, thymine and uracil bicyclonucleoside monomers, oligomerisation, and unprecedented nucleic acid recognition

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/S0040-4020(98)00094-5

LNA (Locked Nucleic Acids), consisting of 2'-O,4'-C-methylene bicyclonucleoside monomers, is efficiently synthesized and its nucleic acid recognition potential evaluated for six different nucleobases, namely adenine, cytosine, guanine, 5-methylcytosine, thymine and uracil. Unprecedented increases (+3 to +8°C per modification) in the thermal stability of duplexes towards both DNA and RNA were obtained when evaluating mixed sequences of partly or fully modified LNA. Studies of mis-matched sequences show that LNA obey the Watson-Crick base pairing rules with generally improved selectivities compared to the corresponding unmodified reference strands.