DNAzymes with peroxidase and nuclease activities

M. DELLAFIORE; L. ROBALDO; J. MONTSERRAT; A. IRIBARREN

Congreso; XXI International Roundtable on Nucleosides, Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids; 2014

DNAzymes are DNA functional oligonucleotides with catalytic activity. The RNA-cleaving 10?23 DNAzyme has been employed to inhibit protein expression in cell cultures and in vivo experiments. This DNAzyme consists of a 15-nucleotide catalytic core and two recognition arms that bind to the target RNA (Figure 1). The use of DNAzymes in gene knock down is limited by their low stability in biological fluids. For this reason,the synthesis of chemically modified DNAzymes carrying non-natural nucleosides is an attracting goal. The incorporation of 2?-deoxy-2?-C-methyl nucleosides, characterized by having furanose restricted conformational states, have shown to increase DNAzyme stability.1    On the other hand, several applications of peroxidase mimicking DNAzymes (Figure 2) in biosensor designs have been reported using colorimetric substrates.2 These DNAzymes were able to perform 2-electron oxidations known to hemoproteins.3 In this work we report the use of these deoxyribozymes as useful catalysts for oxygen transfer reactions to thioether compounds. We also tested the efficiency of a fully modified peroxidase analog using L-DNA.