On the cover of this month’s issue we have an article from David M. Perrin and colleagues from the University of British Columbia, Canada.
In order to expand the repertoire of side chain functionality in DNAzymes Perrin and coworkers have explored the use of the phenol group, which is characteristic of the tyrosine side chain found in many active sites of protein enzymes. They have used a phenol-modified 2′-deoxyuridine triphosphate to produce a modified DNA library, which was then used to select DNAzymes capable of self cleaving in the presence of Mg2+ and Zn2+. The most active DNAzyme, Dz11-17PheO, has an activity of 0.2 min-1.
A divalent metal-dependent self-cleaving DNAzyme with a tyrosine side chain
Curtis H. Lam, Christopher J. Hipolito, Marcel Hollenstein and David M. Perrin
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2011,
DOI: 10.1039/C1OB05359K, Paper
