Premium
Spiegelmers: Biostable Aptamers
Author(s) -
Eulberg Dirk,
Klussmann Sven
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/cbic.200300663
Subject(s) - nucleic acid , aptamer , oligonucleotide , nucleotide , chemistry , dna , computational biology , biology , biochemistry , genetics , gene
Not from this world: Mirror‐image nucleic acids are made of L ‐nucleotides instead of natural D ‐nucleotides. Just like natural D ‐nucleic acids, single‐stranded L ‐oligonucleotides can fold into distinct 3D structures and are thus capable of tightly and specifically binding to a given target (see picture). As a result of their non‐natural chirality, such “spiegelmers” are not substrates for nucleases and therefore persist even in body fluids.