Influence of 5-N-carboxamide modifications on the thermodynamic stability of oligonucleotides

We have recently shown that the incorporation of modified nucleotides such as 5-N-carboxamide-deoxyuridines into random nucleic acid libraries improves success rates in SELEX experiments and facilitates the identification of ligands with slow off-rates. Here we report the impact of these modifications on the thermodynamic stability of both duplexes and intramolecular ‘single-stranded’ structures. Within duplexes, large, hydrophobic naphthyl groups were destabilizing relative to the all natural DNA duplex, while the hydrophilic groups exhibited somewhat improved duplex stability. All of the significant changes in stability were driven by opposing contributions from the enthalpic and entropic terms. In contrast, both benzyl and naphthyl modifications stabilized intramolecular single-stranded structures relative to their natural DNA analogs, consistent with the notion that intramolecular folding allows formation of novel, stabilizing hydrophobic interactions. Imino proton NMR data provided evidence that elements of the folded structure form at temperatures well below the T_m, with a melting transition that is distinctly less cooperative when compared to duplex DNA. Although there are no data to suggest that the unmodified DNA sequences fold into structures similar to their modified analogs, this still represents clear evidence that these modifications impart thermodynamic stability to the folded structure not achievable with unmodified DNA.