1,2-Ethylene-3,3-bis(4¢,4¢¢-dimethoxytrityl chloride), (E-DMT) was developed as a novel, bifunctional protecting reagent. This new compound was found to have a potential as a multipurpose acid-labile protecting reagent which can afford a 5¢,5¢-tritylthymidine dimer and a unique 5¢,3¢-cyclic protected thymidine derivative in modest to good yields.Triphenylmethyl (trityl) group and its derivatives have been widely used for the protection of hydroxyl, amino, and carboxyl groups. The usefulness and importance of the trityl group are clearly demonstrated by (i) highly selective protection of less-hindered functional groups, (ii) stability under neutral or alkaline conditions, (iii) cleavage under mild acidic conditions, (iv) remarkable hydrophobicity, and (v) sensitive detection of the corresponding trityl cation by visual or spectrophotometric methods. 1 Due to these advantages, the trityl groups and in particular its 4¢,4¢¢-dimethoxy trityl (DMT) analogue are widely used for the protection of the 5¢-hydroxyl group during DNA and RNA synthesis. 2In addition to these conventional monofunctional trityl groups, some bis(trityl chloride)s having two trityl chlorides connected with a bifunctional ester linkage have been reported by Köster et al. as a scaffold for solutionphase DNA synthesis (1, Figure 1). 3 These bifunctional trityl chlorides 4 can react with 2 equivalents of a thymidine derivative at the 5¢-OH group allowing synthesis of two strands of DNA via the 3¢-ends. This method significantly differentiates the trityl bearing two oligonucleotide chains from the monomers in molecular size to enable a facile purification of the trityl bearing oligonucleotide by size exclusion gel permeation chromatography. Recently, a solution-phase approach has been evaluated as a scalable route for the large-scale synthesis of therapeutic oligonucleotides. 5 The growing demand for synthetic DNA and RNA and its analogues as therapeutics 6 and reagents for diagnostic 7 applications has triggered a need for improved synthetic protocols 5,8 and the development of new protecting reagents. 9Despite the mentioned advantages, application of compound 1 in nucleic acid chemistry is limited by its susceptibility to base treatment. This limitation is particularly significant for large-scale solution-phase synthesis of oligonucleotides where extensive treatment with ammonium hydroxide is required. We envisioned that this issue could be addressed if the two-trityl groups could be linked together via an all carbon bridge. This modification would lead to a chemically stable bis(trityl) group amenable for oligonucleotide synthesis. Moreover such a protecting group could be recovered and recycled to make the process environmentally friendly. 10 Our continued interest in the development of novel protecting groups 11 prompted us to explore the synthesis of 1,2-ethylene-3,3-bis(4¢,4¢¢-dimethoxytrityl chloride) (E-DMT, 2; Figure 1). Herein, we wish to report our results on the expeditious synthesis of E-DMT and show the preliminary results of potential ...