Abstract In our attempts to prepare polymerizable derivatives of nucleic acid bases, we investigated the reaction of adenine (1) and 9-(cyanoethyl) adenine (4) with acrylic anhydride and acryloyl chloride. Reactions of adenine with methyl acrylate and vinyl acrylate were also examined. The results show that these reactions are solvent dependent and the intermediate acryloyladenine 3 can undergo a facile intramolecular Michael ...
