| Abstract | Peptide nucleic acids (PNA) are artificially synthesized monomers or polymers that mimic DNA or RNA sequences.[1,2] Due to their stability in biological conditions and their ability to bind complementary to DNA or RNA, PNAs have potential medicinal value since they can be used to block processes like replication, transcription, and protein synthesis.[3,4] Though most PNAs are commercially synthesized, the goal of this project was to introduce a propargyl moiety. This enables the final PNA monomer to have an alkyne which allows functional groups (like a polyamine tail, fluorescent tag, or an alkylating group) to be added at the end or any time throughout the synthesis. The PNA monomer will be made with all five nucleotide bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine, and uracil). Another importance of this PNA monomer is its ability to undergo click reactions to add functional groups or a charge.[5,6] Click chemistry is a chemical reaction that commonly uses copper-catalyzed coupling to combine an azide with an alkyne. The ability to use click chemistry is beneficial since it can be done in biological conditions, has a near quantitative yield with few byproducts, and is relatively quick to perform. In conclusion, this project is useful since these PNA sequences can be used to modulate processes and treat a variety of diseases while having the ability to add groups that will give the PNA various functionalities. |
