5'-Dimethoxytrityl-Protected Double-Stranded DNA: Synthesis and Competence to Blunt-Ended Ligation and 5', 3'-Exonuclease Activity

Research Article

Austin Chem Eng. 2020; 7(2): 1077.

5'-Dimethoxytrityl-Protected Double-Stranded DNA: Synthesis and Competence to Blunt-Ended Ligation and 5', 3'-Exonuclease Activity

Shchur VV, Burankova YP, Dzichenka YV, Usanov SA and Yantsevich AV*

Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences, Belarus

*Corresponding author: Yantsevich Aleksei V, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences, Belarus

Received: June 15, 2020; Accepted: July 03, 2020; Published: July 10, 2020

Abstract

The functionalization of 5'-OH group in nucleic acids is of significant value for molecular biology. For example, asymmetric phosphorylation of sense and antisense strands of DNA found application during the generation of gene-size ssDNA, that isimportant nowadays for precise editing of genomes by CRISPR/Cas9 methodology. In the current work we discovered that acid-labile 4,4'-Dimethoxytrityl Protecting Group (DMT) of oligonucleotides is stable under PCR conditions and does not interfere with activity of DNA polymerases. So application of 5'-DMT-protected oligonucleotides could allow producing both symmetric and asymmetric 5'-DMT-blocked DNA fragments. We demonstrated that the presence of thiol compounds (mercaptoethanol and dithiothreitol) in PCR mixture is undesirable for the stability of DMT-group. DMT-oligonucleotides can be successfully used during polymerase chain assembly of synthetic genes. We tested 5'-DMT dsDNA in blunt-end DNA ligation reaction by T4 DNA ligase and found that it could be effectively ligated with 5'-phosphorylated DNA fragments, namely linearized plasmid vector. We alsodemonstrated that5'-DMT modification of dsDNA does affect activity of T5 5',3'-exonuclease towards both ssDNA and dsDNA. Further search of the exonucleases, sensitive to 5'-DMT-modification or ways to separate 5'-DMT-ssDNA and 5'-OH-ssDNA could allow finding application of 5'-DMT-modified oligo- and polynucleotides.

Keywords: Oligonucleotide; DMT,4,4'-dimethoxytritylprotection group,Long ssDNA; Synthetic gene; Cloning.

 

Introduction

Functionalization of a 5'-hydroxyl group of nucleic acids founds many applications in DNA technology [1], because it allows following and detecting labeled molecules and to control specificity of the enzymes.

For example, stability, uptake and immunogenicity of therapeutic siRNA and mRNA could be improved by structural modification of the 5'-end [2]. Phosphorylation by T4 polynucleotidekinase is used for tagging of oligonucleotides before sequencing, PCR and ligation [3]. In the latter case,selective ligation of phosphorylated DNA fragments into the dephosphorylated vector happens (Figure 1) [4].

Asymmetric labeling of 5'-end of DNA is of particular importance for the generation of “gene-size” single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) [5]. Currently, ssDNA is used as a donor template for knocking experiments requiring DNA fragments with length more than 500 bases [6]. ssDNA repair templates have recently been shown to have advantages over dsDNA. Among them are a very low tendency to random genome integration [7], low cytotoxic response and absence of expression from nonintegrated templates, that facilitates correct identification of genome edited clones. At the same time, the usefulness of long ssDNA templates is limited due to the difficulty and cost of producing them.