As drug candidates, one promising way to improve the cellular delivery efficacy of oligonucleotides is to introduce a cationic group. By introducing a cationic moiety into the oligonucleotide structure, they become capable of approaching the cell surface and also of crossing the cellular membrane. In an effort to develop cell-permeable oligonucleotides, we examined the piperazinephenyl-bearing 2'-deoxyuridine ((PP)U), which can be not only cationic but also fluorescent as a cationic monomer for cationic oligonucleotides. Several modified DNA oligonucleotides with different numbers of (PP)U building blocks were synthesized and evaluated for the effect on thermal stability and conformation by the introduction of (PP)U. The cellular delivery of modified oligonucleotides was different depending on the number of (PP)U building blocks. Furthermore, these (PP)U-modified oligonucleotides had sufficient fluorescence that we were able to identify the delivery results without the use of conventional fluorescent tags. They were predominantly localized in the cell cytoplasm. In addition, they were stable enough after 3 hours in the presence of nuclease. These results showed that a piperazinephenyl moiety that is conjugated with nucleobase is able to deliver and detect the oligonucleotides, which suggests that this concept of 'dual-function oligonucleotides' might be utilized in diagnostics, therapeutics, and as a convenient biological tool for probing the activity of oligonucleotides inside cells.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.