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Science 17 November 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5495, pp. 1347 - 1351
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5495.1347
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Reports

Chemical Etiology of Nucleic Acid Structure: The alpha -Threofuranosyl-(3'→2') Oligonucleotide System

K.-U. Schöning, P. Scholz, S. Guntha, X. Wu, R. Krishnamurthy, A. Eschenmoser*

TNAs [(L)-alpha -threofuranosyl oligonucleotides] containing vicinally connected (3'rightarrow 2') phosphodiester bridges undergo informational base pairing in antiparallel strand orientation and are capable of cross-pairing with RNA and DNA. Being derived from a sugar containing only four carbons, TNA is structurally the simplest of all potentially natural oligonucleotide-type nucleic acid alternatives studied thus far. This, along with the base-pairing properties of TNA, warrants close scrutiny of the system in the context of the problem of RNA's origin.

The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA, and Laboratorium für Organische Chemie, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Universitätstrasse 16, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: aeschen{at}scripps.edu

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