Extended in vitro selection for synthesis of novel catalytic oligonucleotide derivatives

A new catalyst, which is composed of nonnatural ribonucleotides, was synthesized by the in vitro selection method. Nonnatural RNAs that bound to N-methylmesoporphyrin were selected from a pool of random-sequence RNAs containing 2'-amino cytidine 5'-triphosphate (2'-amino CTP) instead of CTP. The selected RNAs not only bound to the ligand, N-methylmesoporphyrin (NMM), but also catalyzed metalation reaction of porphyrin.