Programmable and Sequence-Selective Supramolecular Assembly of Two Different Chromophores along DNA Templates

The templated self-assembly of two different chromophores attached to the same binding motif gives oligomers of statistical mixtures without any control on the resulting chromophore sequence. The first self-assembled bichromophore system is reported, in which the resulting chromophore sequence is simply governed by the DNA template. A new ethynylpyrene-diaminopurine 2'-deoxynucleoside was combined with the ethynyl nile red-modified 2'-deoxyuridine to achieve this completely programmable sequence selective self-assembly. The helical ordering of the two different chromophores by DNA templates with different mixtures of A-T sequences yields precise control over the optical properties of the formed assemblies, which was proven by methods of optical spectroscopy.