Selection of an unnatural peptide library for dsDNA binding

More and more, nucleic acids have become prime targets in the development of new compounds, able to control gene expression. For the development of new sequence selective dsDNA binding ligands, one can learn a lot from existing models such as, lexitropsins, combilexins and actinomycin D. This analysis, together with the knowledge of the details on protein-DNA interactions, has inspired the assembly of unnatural amino acids in a combinatorial way to generate a dsDNA recognition library. The first selection round has led to the selection of new DNA binding molecules, which may lead on the long run to the discovery of new DNA binding motifs.