The potential use of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) as a sequence-specific inhibitor of RNA translation is investigated in this report. Three different regions of the PML/RARalpha oncogene, including two AUG potential start codons, were studied as targets of translation inhibition by antisense PNA in a cell-free system. A PNA targeted to the second AUG start codon, which was shown previously to be ...

We investigated the interaction of the short peptide nucleic acid (PNA) strand [acccca]-PNA with oligodeoxynucleotides containing one, two, or four tracts of TGGGGT units. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry allowed exploring the wide variety of complex stoichiometries that were found to coexist in solution. In water, the PNA strand forms short heteroduplexes with the complementary DNA se...

Background Siblings of children with peanut allergy (PNA) are reported to have a higher prevalence of PNA than the general population. This prevalence may have both genetic and environmental influences, but may also reflect incorrect PNA diagnoses with less rigorous usage of confirmatory tests in siblings. The Peanut Allergy Registry (PAR), a Canadian database of individuals with PNA, was used ...

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are promising tools for gene regulation. One of the challenges of using PNAs as gene regulators is the need to optimize the efficiency of interaction with critical sequences of DNA. To improve the efficiency of binding between PNAs and the HER-2/neu promoter, mono- and bis-pyrimidine-rich PNAs were conjugated to a nitrogen mustard at either the amino or carboxy term...

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are DNA-mimicking molecules in which the sugar-phosphate backbone is replaced by a pseudopeptide backbone composed of N-(2-aminoethyl)glycine units. We determined whether double-stranded molecules based on PNAs and PNA-DNA-PNA (PDP) chimeras could be capable of stable interactions with nuclear proteins belonging to the Sp1 transcription factor family and, therefore,...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major cause of chronic active hepatitis, cirrhosis, and primary hepatocellular carcinoma, all of which are severe threats to human health. However, current clinical therapies for HBV are limited by potential side effects, toxicity, and drug-resistance. In this study, a cell-penetrating peptide-conjugated peptide nucleic acid (PNA), Tat-PNA-DR, was designed...

Peanut agglutinin (PNA) was known for its selective binding to cone cells. In the present study, we investigated whether there was any difference in PNA binding among various subtypes of cone photoreceptor cells in the dace retina. The outer segments of the long-double- and long-single-cone cells were preferentially labeled with PNA. Ultrastructural pre-embedding labeling revealed that the bind...

The conjugated polyene fatty acid parinaric acid (PnA) undergoes a stoichiometric loss in fluorescence upon oxidation and can be used to directly monitor peroxidative stress within lipid environments. We evaluated the course of potentially atherogenic oxidative changes in low density lipoproteins (LDL) by monitoring the oxidation of PnA following its incorporation into buoyant (p = 1.026-1.032 ...

Invasion of two PNA strands to double-stranded DNA is one of the most promising methods to recognize a predetermined site in double-stranded DNA (PNA = peptide nucleic acid). In order to facilitate this 'double-duplex invasion', a new type of PNA was prepared by using chiral PNA monomers in which a nucleobase was bound to the alpha-nitrogen of N-(2-aminoethyl)-d-lysine. These positively charged...

A novel alkali extractable polysaccharide (designated as PNA-2) was purified from Pleurotus nebrodensis and the effects of purified PNA-2 on the proliferation and apoptosis of human hepatic cancer cells (HepG2) were investigated in this study. The results of a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay indicated that PNA-2 inhibited the proliferation of HepG2 cells...