With few exceptions, experimental success in molecular biology is dependent upon specific, discriminating, and persistent hybridization events involving synthetic oligonucleotides and their complementary target sequences. While unmodified oligodeoxynucleotides will routinely form desired DNA:DNA and DNA:RNA duplexes, synthesis of various modifications that confer enhanced high-affinity recognit...

Locked nucleic acids (LNAs) are synthetic analogs of nucleic acids that contain a bridging methylene carbon between the 2' and 4' positions of the ribose ring. In this study, we generated a novel sequence-specific antigene molecule "Zorro LNA", which simultaneously binds to both strands, and that induced effective and specific strand invasion into DNA duplexes and potent inhibition of gene tran...

Recently, KOD and its related DNA polymerases have been used for preparing various modified nucleic acids, including not only base-modified nucleic acids, but also sugar-modified ones, such as bridged/locked nucleic acid (BNA/LNA) which would be promising candidates for nucleic acid drugs. However, thus far, reasons for the effectiveness of KOD DNA polymerase for such purposes have not been cle...

We have synthesized and studied the biological and biophysical properties of triazole-linked ribo and xylo locked nucleic acid (LNA). The combination of LNA with the Isobe triazole linkage gave high binding affinity when incorporated at the 3' or 5' termini of oligonucleotides, but low binding affinity at internal positions. Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) and siRNAs containing triazole dimer...

The ease and advantages of allelespecific PCR (AS-PCR) for SNP genotyping, along with the difficulty of assay specificity with certain mismatched DNA primers, have been described in prior studies (1–3). More recently, the use of real-time PCR detection formats has been described for one or both alleles of AS-PCR (4–6). These detection enhancement methods do not overcome the inherent difficultie...

'Locked nucleic acids' (LNAs) are known to introduce enhanced bio- and thermostability into natural nucleic acids rendering them powerful tools for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. We present the 1.9 Å X-ray structure of an 'all LNA' duplex containing exclusively modified β-D-2'-O-4'C-methylene ribofuranose nucleotides. The helix illustrates a new type of nucleic acid geometry that cont...

We have determined the NMR solution structures of the quadruplexes formed by d(TGLGLT) and d(TL4T), where L denotes LNA (locked nucleic acid) modified G-residues. Both structures are tetrameric, parallel and right-handed and the native global fold of the corresponding DNA quadruplex is retained upon introduction of the LNA nucleotides. However, local structural alterations are observed owing to...