Peptide nucleic acids: deoxyribonucleic acid mimics with a peptide backbone

This tutorial briefly describes a new class of synthetic biopolymer, which is refer-red to as peptide nucleic acid (PNA). Tn PNA, individual nucleobases are linked to an achiral neutral peptide backbone. PNA exhibits the hybridization characteristic (e.g., Watson-Crick duplex formation) of DNA. The achiral peptide backbone provides similar interbase distances as natural DNA, and adequate flexibility to permit base pair interactions with complementary RNA or DNA strands. Several potential applications of PNA oligomers in biotechnology are suggested. These include the use of PNAs as a probe for specific recognition of a DNA or RNA sequence selective, purification of nucleic acids via designed high affinity binding to PNA, screening for DNA mutations, and as possible therapeutic agents. (C) 1998 IUBMB. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.