Organic Chemistry

Novel nucleotides, nucleoside triphosphates and their lipophilic masked prodrugs bearing different environment-sensitive fluorescent labels will be designed and synthesized. Their enzymatic incorporations to DNA or RNA will be studied and they will be used in the construction of oligonucleotide probes for detection of interactions with biomolecules. The lipophilic prodrugs will be used in the study of their penetration to cells and applied in metabolic labelling of genomic DNA.

Leading references:
1. Dziuba, D.; Pohl, R.; Hocek, M. "Polymerase synthesis of DNA labelled with benzylidene cyanoacetamide-based fluorescent molecular rotors: fluorescent light-up probes for DNA-binding proteins" Chem. Commun. 2015, 51, 4880-4882.
2. Dziuba, D.; Jurkiewicz, P.; Cebecauer, M.; Hof, M.; Hocek, M. "A Rotational Bodipy-Nucleotide: An Environment-Sensitive Fluorescence-Lifetime Probe for DNA Interactions and Applications in Live-Cell Microscopy" Angew. Chem. Int, Ed. in press. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201507922