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About this collection
Nucleic acids not only form the basis of heredity but are potentially a source of novel nanostructures, nanodevices and powerful drugs. However, the functional scope of these is limited by systemic shortcomings in nucleic acid chemistry, which include a limited repertoire of chemical functionalities, poor chemical and biostability and a polyelectrolyte backbone, which dominates their physicochemical and pharmacological properties. This has spurred the development of chemically modified alternatives called Xeno Nucleic Acids (XNAs), comprising alternative chemical configurations not found in nature to extend the chemical functional and informational scope of nucleic acids.
This themed collection, guest edited by Philipp Holliger (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology), Chaoyong Yang (Xiamen University), and Dennis Bong (Ohio State University), covers all aspects of modified nucleic acids in chemical and synthetic biology including both in vitro as well as in vivo applications, and new chemistries. Taken together, the papers collected in this themed collection represent the state of the art on XNAs and highlights work at the interface of chemistry and biology.