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Self‐Assembling of Fmoc‐GC Peptide Nucleic Acid Dimers into Highly Fluorescent Aggregates
Author(s) -
Avitabile Concetta,
Diaferia Carlo,
Della Ventura Bartolomeo,
Mercurio Flavia Anna,
Leone Marilisa,
Roviello Valentina,
Saviano Michele,
Velotta Raffaele,
Morelli Giancarlo,
Accardo Antonella,
Romanelli Alessandra
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201800279
Subject(s) - peptide nucleic acid , dimer , supramolecular chemistry , fluorescence , nucleic acid , chemistry , peptide , nucleotide , conjugated system , molecule , combinatorial chemistry , nanotechnology , materials science , organic chemistry , polymer , biochemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , gene
The study of molecules that self‐assemble through noncovalent interactions is one of the most attractive topics in supramolecular chemistry. The use of short peptides or modified nucleotides as building blocks for the aggregates is particularly intriguing because these are very easy to synthesize; moreover, subtle changes in the chemical structure of such building blocks may drastically affect the properties of the aggregates. The ability of peptide nucleic acids (PNA) to aggregate has been very little explored, despite its practical applications. In this work we investigated the self‐assembling properties of a PNA dimer, conjugated at the N‐terminus to a fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl group. This PNA dimer forms nano‐aggregates at low concentration in CHCl 3 /CH 3 OH mixtures. The aggregates retain very interesting fluorescent properties (high quantum yield in the visible region with lifetimes on the nanosecond scale), which make them promising materials for applications in optoelectronics.