Double-headed nucleic acids condense the molecular information of DNA to half the number of nucleotides

Abstract

Nucleotide monomers that hold two nucleobases each, i.e. double-headed nucleotides, have been shown to form two sets of functional Watson–Crick base pairs when incorporated into dsDNA, and they hereby behave as dinucleotides. To form the basis for fully modified double-headed nucleic acids (DhNA), we have prepared three new DhNA monomers and can now demonstrate that the molecular information of 10 Watson–Crick base pairs can be condensed to highly stable 5-mer DhNA duplexes.