Nucleic Acids Research 1994-10-11

5-Nitroindole as an universal base analogue.

D Loakes, D M Brown

Index: Nucleic Acids Res. 22(20) , 4039-43, (1994)

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Abstract

4-, 5- and 6-Nitroindole have been investigated and compared with 3-nitropyrrole as universal bases in oligodeoxynucleotides. Of these the 5-nitroindole derivative was found to be superior giving higher duplex stability, and behaving indiscriminately towards each of the four natural bases in duplex melting experiments. 3-Nitropyrrole, whilst not discriminating between the natural bases, was found to lead to considerable destabilisation of the duplexes, particularly when multiple substitutions were made, in contrast to the 5-nitroindole nucleoside.