Effect of local structural disruption on the photochemical ligation between anthracene-modified DNA conjugates

DNA templated ligation reactions has attracted great interest in the field of DNA probing and medical diagnosis. To date some research groups reported a variety of chemical ligations, in which two DNAs with reactive groups that bound adjacently on the complementary strand were connected covalently to form a corresponding longer product. Here we introduced the photoligation of anthracene modified ODN conjugates through anthracene cyclodimer formation. The effect of the position of single base mismatch on the template was evaluated using six sequences with one-base displacements. The yield of the ligation was affected by mispairing in position-dependent manner. It would be due to the disruption of the local structure around the two anthracenes of both reaction partners.