Svnthesis of Deoxvribopolynucleotides Containing Repeating Di- and Tri-nucleotide Sequence

Synthesis of palynucleotides has been in progress in our laboratory for the last ten years. Chemically synthesized deoxyribo-oligonucleotides of well defined size and structure have served as substrates to elucidate the mode of action of a number of enzymes which degrade nucleic acids; e.g., spleen phasphadiesterase and venom phosphodiesterase. They have also been used as models to develop chemical methods for the sequential analysis of nucleic acids; e.g., end group labelling. At present it is our conviction that the availability of to carry out synthetic deoxyribopolynucleotides would enable us/a closer study of the process of genetic information transfer. This is supported by the following recent discoveries from our own and other laboratories. 1) Short chain synthetic d-AT polymer serves as template for DNA-polymerase. 2) Several synthetic deoxyribopolynucleotides serve as templates for RNA-polymerase. 3) The ribo-polyadenylate formed using deoxyribo-polythymidylat ate P in the RNA-polymerase system [(A+-~..-+ \ c-4 ,,-.-c < +,-<&brings about polylysine synthesis in the cell-free .y sic;,, --