Bioactive polymeric scaffolds are a prerequisite for the ultimate formation of functional tissues. Here, we show that supramolecular polymers based on quadruple hydrogen bonding ureido-pyrimidinone (UPy) moieties are eminently suitable for producing such bioactive materials owing to their low-temperature processability, favourable degradation and biocompatible behaviour. Particularly, the rever...

We report details of the synthesis and characterization of oligoribonucleotides containing 4-thiouridine or 2-pyrimidinone ribonucleoside (4HC). We have used these probes to examine the roles of the conserved pyrimidines in the central core of the hammerhead ribozyme. The effects on catalysis of singly-substituted hammerhead ribozyme and substrate strands were quantified in multiple-turnover re...

A powerful strategy to obtain complex supramolecular materials is the bottom-up construction of noncovalently bound materials by hierarchical self-assembly. This assembly process involves stepwise, uniform increases to the architectural complexity of a substrate, starting from discrete precursors and growing in dimensionality through controlled reactivity to a final product. Herein, two orthogo...

The nucleoside 2'-deoxyzebularine (K) was incorporated into the self-complementary dodecamer 5'-CGTACGKGTACG-3' by solid-phase 2-cyanoethylphosphoramidite chemistry using dimethoxytrityl (DMT) as the 5'-hydroxyl protecting group. Standard synthesis cycles using trichloroacetic acid and short ammonia treatment (50 degrees C for 30 min) were found to be the optimal conditions to obtain the desire...

In mammals DNA methylation occurs at position 5 of cytosine in a CpG context and regulates gene expression. It plays an important role in diseases and inhibitors of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs)--the enzymes responsible for DNA methylation--are used in clinics for cancer therapy. The most potent inhibitors are 5-azacytidine and 5-azadeoxycytidine. Zebularine (1-(beta-D-ribofuranosyl)-2(1H)- py...

thirty nine novel 1,2,3,4-tetrahydropyrimidinone (thione)s were subjected to conformational studies. density functional theory at b3lyp/6-31 g* was performed as the computational method of high accuracy. important dihedral angles and bond lengths were investigated and the values obtained were explainable. results of this work confirm a twisted boat tetrahydropyrimidine ring conformation with an...