Synthetic Elaboration of Native DNA by RASS (SENDR)

Controlled site-specific bioconjugation through chemical methods to native DNA remains an unanswered challenge. Herein, we report a simple solution to achieve this conjugation through the tactical combination of two recently developed technologies: one for the manipulation of DNA in organic media and another for the chemoselective labeling of alcohols. Reversible adsorption of solid support (RASS) is employed to immobilize DNA and facilitate its transfer into dry acetonitrile. Subsequent reaction with P(V)-based Ψ reagents takes place in high yield with exquisite selectivity for the exposed 3' or 5' alcohols on DNA. This two-stage process, dubbed SENDR for Synthetic Elaboration of Native DNA by RASS, can be applied to a multitude of DNA conformations and sequences with a variety of functionalized Ψ reagents to generate useful constructs.