Autonomous DNA computers have been attracting much attention because of their ability to integrate into living cells. Autonomous DNA computers can process information through DNA molecules and their molecular reactions. We have already proposed an idea of an autonomous molecular computer with high computational ability, which is now named Reverse-transcription-and-TRanscription-based Autonomous Computing System (RTRACS). In this study, we first report an experimental demonstration of a basic computation element of RTRACS and a mathematical modeling method for RTRACS. We focus on an AND gate, which produces an output RNA molecule only when two input RNA molecules exist, because it is one of the most basic computation elements in RTRACS. Experimental results demonstrated that the basic computation element worked as designed. In addition, its behaviors were analyzed using a mathematical model describing the molecular reactions of the RTRACS computation elements. A comparison between experiments and simulations confirmed the validity of the mathematical modeling method. This study will accelerate construction of various kinds of computation elements and computational circuits of RTRACS, and thus advance the research on autonomous DNA computers.
A 2'-O-methyluridylic acid derivative 3 having a cyclic structure linked between the 5-position of the uracil residue and the 5'-phosphate group was synthesized. The NMR analysis suggests that this cyclouridylic acid derivative has exclusively the C3'-endo conformation that is in favor of duplex formation with RNA. Two oligonucleotides ¿pc3Um(pT)(9) and pc3Um(pU)(9) incorporating this cyclouridylic acid unit at the 5'-terminal site were synthesized by using the fully protected cyclouridylic acid 3'-phosphoramidite derivative 11 in the solid-phase synthesis. To examine the actual effect of this cyclic structure on the thermal stability of duplexes between the modified oligonucleotides and their complementary oligonucleotides, two oligonucleotides ¿pUm(pT)(9) and pUm(pU)(9) having an acyclic structure were also synthesized. As the complementary oligonucleotides, dA(pdA)(9) and A(pA)(9) were used for T(m) experiments with these 5'-terminal modified oligonucleotides. The T(m) values of all the possible duplexes were measured. These results clearly show that the duplex of pc3Um(pT)(9)-A(pA)(9) has a higher T(m) value by 5.5 degrees C than that of A(pA)(9)-T(pT)(9). This is rather significant compared with all other cases. Moreover, the T(m) value of pc3Um(pT)(9)-A(pA)(9) is 4.5 degrees C higher than that of pUm(pT)(9)-A(pA)(9). This result suggests that the cyclic structure can considerably contribute to stabilization of the duplex only in the case of the modified oligomer (DNA) and decaadenylate (RNA).
2'-Phosphorylated and 2'-thiophosphorylated dinucleotides U(2'-p)pU (1) and U(2'-ps)pU (2) were found to undergo facile 2'-specific dephosphorylation at 90 degrees C in neutral aqueous solution to give UpU, and the first-order rate constants of these reactions were determined by HPLC. Particularly, U(2'-ps)pU (2, k = 1.38 +/- 0.4 x 10(-)(3) s(-)(1), t(comp) = 1 h) was cleanly dephosphorylated ca. 100 times more rapidly than U(2'-p)pU (1, k = 1.41 +/- 0.05 x 10(-)(5) s(-)(1), t(comp) = 72 h). Dephosphorylations of 1 and 2 were faster than those of thymidine 3'-phosphate (8) and thymidine 3'-thiophosphate (9), respectively. The kinetic data observed were independent of the 2'- or 3'-position of the phosphate group and the kind of base moiety. The neighboring 3'-5' phosphodiester function most probably promotes the 2'-dephosphorylation efficiently. A branched trimer, U(2'-pU)pU (3), and related compounds having a substituent on the 2'-phosphoryl group, such as U(2'-pp-biotin)pU (4) and U(2'-ps-bimane)pU (5), were rather resistant to hydrolysis. The addition of divalent metal ions (Mg(2+), Mn(2+), Zn(2+), Ca(2+), Co(2+), and Cd(2+)) remarkably decreased the rate of 2'-de(thio)phosphorylation of 1 or 2. Among these metal ions, Zn(2+) most significantly inhibited the dephosphorylation. On the contrary, trivalent metal ions considerably accelerated the 2'-de(thio)phosphorylation of 1 or 2. The mechanism of 2'-dephosphorylation in the presence and absence of various metal ions is also discussed.
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