Artificial nucleic acid backbones and their applications in therapeutics, synthetic biology and biotechnology

Sven Epple, Afaf H. El-Sagheer, Tom Brown. Energing topics in life science 5 (5), 691-697, 2021.

Abstract

The modification of DNA or RNA backbones is an emerging technology for therapeutic oligonucleotides, synthetic biology and biotechnology. Despite a plethora of reported artificial backbones, their vast potential is not fully utilised. Limited synthetic accessibility remains a major bottleneck for the wider application of backbone-modified oligonucleotides. Thus, a variety of readily accessible artificial backbones and robust methods for their introduction into oligonucleotides are urgently needed to utilise their full potential in therapeutics, synthetic biology and biotechnology.