Modified peptide nucleic acids: Studies of double-stranded DNA invasion and cellular viability

BIOL 134

Gaofei He, ghe@andrew.cmu.edu, Anca Dragulescu-Andrasi, Srinivas Rapireddy, and Danith H. Ly, dly@andrew.cmu.edu. Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a synthetic DNA analogue with uncharged pseudo peptide backbone, which has high potential to be the candidates of sequence-specifically recognition reagents. PNAs with modified backbone have been synthesized and shown valuable properties. The Alanine derived PNAs have been prepared and have shown the ability to invade double stranded DNA with high specificity and efficiency. The Arginine derived PNAs have been readily taken-up by human somatic cells as well as embryonic stem (ES) cells, and is less toxic to the cells than the conventional design. We thus conclude that the modified PNAs have the promising potential to be the anti-gene reagents as well as for genetic diagnostic applications.