Synthesis of novel di-Se-containing thymidine and Se-DNAs for structure and function studies

The selenium derivatization of nucleic acids and nucleic acid-protein complexes has provided a powerful tool to solve phase problem in X-ray crystallography. Selenium atoms in the nucleotides can serve as fine scattering centers in crystal diffraction. Towards the synthesis of multiple selenium atom-containing nucleotides, which offers strong phasing power to facilitate crystal structure determination, we report here the synthesis of the thymidine analogue containing two Se atoms in one nucleobase. The novel Se-containing nucleoside and oligonucleotide DNAs were synthesized and found with the red-shifted UV spectrum and yellow color. Their unique properties are useful in phase determination, nucleic acid-based detection as well as spectroscopic studies of nucleic acids and nucleic acid-protein complexes.