CHARACTERIZATION
of
PEPTIDE
NUCLEIC
ACID
AND
COMPLEMENTARY DNA BY CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS
Xiaoqian WANG, Feng QU*
School of Life Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081,China
Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is a nucleic acid analogue, in which the pentose phosphate
backbone in nucleic acid is replaced by a neutral peptide chain of N-(2 – aminoethyl) glycine.
PNA can not be degraded by protease and nuclease. PNA has a high specificity and affinity
when hybridizing with complementary DNA or RNA, and the hybridization is not influenced by
solution and ionic condition
[1]
. As a modified nucleic acid, PNA may be used for protein
recognition which is similar to aptamer. 15mer human thrombin aptamer is known to
specifically recognize and stably combine human thrombin. In our work, the PNA which has
the same base sequences with 15 mer aptamer was used. The investigation of PNA, 15 mer
aptamer and its complementary DNA was done by capillary electrophoresis and nonaqueous
capillary electrophoresis, the establishment of analytical methods will lay the foundation of
molecule recognition and interaction studies of PNA, aptamer and their targets.
REFERENCE
1. Shabih Shakeel, Sajjad Karim, Arif Ali. Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) – a review [J]. Journal of
Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, 2006, 81: 892-899.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21135008、21175011、20875009).
* Corresponding author: Prof. Feng Qu, E-mail: [email protected]