We present a 6-NHC-Cu(I) complex that provides α-substituted allylboronates using allylic aryl ether substrates. The method was discovered by comparison of the chemoselectivities exhibited by complexes 1a, 1b, 2, and 3. We observed that 1a preferentially reacts with electron-rich alkenes over electron-deficient alkenes. Development of an asymmetric method revealed that 1b reacts with both the E and Z isomers to provide the same absolute configuration without showing E-Z isomerization. This stereoconvergent reaction occurs with high yields (av 86%), high S(N)2' selectivity (>99:1), and high ee (av 94%) and exhibits wide functional-group tolerance using pure E or Z isomer or E/Z alkene mixtures. The stereoconvergent feature enables the use of many different olefination strategies for substrate production, including cross-metathesis. Chiral allylboronates could be purified by silica gel chromatography and stored in the freezer without decomposition.
A chiral 6-membered annulated N-heterocyclic (6-NHC) copper complex that catalyzes β-borylations with high yield and enantioselectivity was developed. The chiral 6-NHC copper complex is easy to prepare on the gram scale and is very active, showing 10,000 turnovers at 0.01 mol % of catalyst without significant decrease of enantioselectivity and with useful reaction rates.
Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a unique synthetic nucleic acid analog that has been adopted for use in many biological applications. These applications rely upon the robust Franklin-Watson-Crick base pairing...
Oligonucleotide aptamers can be converted into structure-switching biosensors by incorporating a short, typically labeled oligonucleotide that is complementary to the analytebinding region. Binding of a target analyte can disrupt the hybridization equilibrium between the aptamer and the labeled-complementary oligo producing a concentration-dependent signal for target-analyte sensing. Despite its importance in the performance of a biosensor, the mechanism of analyte-response of most structure-switching aptamers is not well understood. In this work, we employ single-molecule fluorescence imaging to investigate the competitive kinetics of association of a labeled complementary oligonucleotide and a target analyte, Ltyrosinamide (L-Tym), interacting with an L-Tym-binding aptamer. The complementary readout strand is fluorescently labeled, allowing us to measure its hybridization kinetics with individual aptamers immobilized on a surface and located with super-resolution techniques; the small-molecule L-Tym analyte is not labeled in order to avoid having an attached dye molecule impact its interactions with the aptamer. We measure the association kinetics of unlabeled L-Tym by detecting its influence on the hybridization of the labeled complementary strand. We find that L-Tym slows the association rate of the complementary strand with the aptamer but does not impact its dissociation rate, suggesting an S N 1-like mechanism where the complementary strand must dissociate before L-Tym can bind. The competitive model revealed a slow association rate between L-Tym and the aptamer, producing a long-lived L-Tym−aptamer complex that blocks hybridization with the labeled complementary strand. These results provide insight about the kinetics and mechanism of analyte recognition in this structure-switching aptamer, and the methodology provides a general means of measuring the rates of unlabeled-analyte binding kinetics in aptamer-based biosensors.
The development of high fidelity polymerases and streamlined synthesis of threose nucleic acid (TNA) triphosphates and phosphoramidites has made TNA accessible as a motif for generating nuclease-resistant high-affinity aptamers, antisense oligos, and synthetic genetic biopolymers. Little is known, however, about the thermostability trends of TNA:DNA duplexes. Here we investigate the thermostability of 14 TNA:DNA duplexes with the goal of elucidating the fundamental factors governing TNA:DNA duplex stability. We find that purine content in TNA significantly influences the stability and conformation of TNA:DNA duplexes. Low TNA purine content destabilizes duplexes, with T m values often 5 °C lower than analogous DNA:DNA and RNA:DNA duplexes. By contrast, TNA:DNA duplexes having high TNA purine content display greater stability than DNA:DNA or RNA:DNA duplexes having the same sequences. High TNA purine content leads TNA:DNA duplexes to adopt conformations similar to RNA:RNA (A-form) configuration, whereas duplexes with low TNA purine content have conformations more similar to DNA:DNA (B-form) configuration. These insights provide a basis for understanding and predicting TNA:DNA duplex stability, which is anticipated to guide the practical use of TNA in biotechnology applications.
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