A very stable cyclic DNA miniduplex with just two base pairs

A. H. El-Sagheer, R. Kumar, S. Findlow, J. M. Werner, A. N. Lane and T. Brown. ChemBioChem 9 (1), 50-52, 2008.

Abstract

What goes around… Cyclic mini-DNA duplexes, as shown in the scheme, have been synthesized in high yield on the multimicromole scale by using click chemistry. These B-like duplexes are very stable and bind to drugs, such as distamycin A and 7-aminoactinomycin D. Circular dichroism indicates that the bases are stacked, and UV melting and NMR spectroscopy showed that the interbase hydrogen bonds are very stable, even in a dimer.