Triazole- and Tetrazole-Bridged Nucleic Acids: Synthesis, Duplex Stability, Nuclease Resistance, and in Vitro and in Vivo Antisense Potency

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• 作者：Yasunori Mitsuoka ; Tsuyoshi Yamamoto ; Akira Kugimiya ; Reiko Waki ; Fumito Wada ; Saori Tahara ; Motoki Sawamura ; Mio Noda ; Yuko Fujimura ; Yuki Kato ; Yoshiyuki Hari ; Satoshi Obika
• 刊名：Journal of Organic Chemistry
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 6, 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：82
• 期：1
• 页码：12-24
• 全文大小：597K
• ISSN：1520-6904

文摘

Antisense oligonucleotides are attractive therapeutic agents for several types of disease. One of the most promising modifications of antisense oligonucleotides is the introduction of bridged nucleic acids. As we report here, we designed novel bridged nucleic acids, triazole-bridged nucleic acid (TrNA), and tetrazole-bridged nucleic acid (TeNA), whose sugar conformations are restricted to N-type by heteroaromatic ring-bridged structures. We then successfully synthesized TrNA and TeNA and introduced these monomers into oligonucleotides. In UV-melting experiments, TrNA-modified oligonucleotides exhibited increased binding affinity toward complementary RNA and decreased binding affinity toward complementary DNA, although TeNA-modified oligonucleotides were decomposed under the annealing conditions. Enzymatic degradation experiments demonstrated that introduction of TrNA at the 3′-terminus rendered oligonucleotides resistant to nuclease digestion. Furthermore, we tested the silencing potencies of TrNA-modified antisense oligonucleotides using in vitro and in vivo assays. These experiments revealed that TrNA-modified antisense oligonucleotides induced potent downregulation of gene expression in liver. In addition, TrNA-modified antisense oligonucleotides showed a tendency for increased liver biodistribution. Taken together, our findings indicate that TrNA is a good candidate for practical application in antisense methodology.