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TNA Synthesis by DNA Polymerases

2003; American Chemical Society; Volume: 125; Issue: 31 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/ja035917n

1943-2984

John C. Chaput, Jack W. Szostak,

Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology

Threose nucleic acid (TNA), which has a repeat unit one atom shorter than that of DNA, is capable of Watson−Crick base pairing with DNA, RNA, and TNA. Because of its chemical simplicity, TNA is considered to be a possible progenitor of RNA. As an initial step toward developing the molecular tools necessary to investigate the functional capabilities of TNA by in vitro selection, we have screened a variety of DNA polymerases for TNA synthesis activity on a DNA template. We wish to report that several polymerases show surprisingly good ability to synthesize TNA using α-l-threofuranosyl thymidine-3‘-triphosphate as a substrate.