A concise synthesis of desacetamidopyrimidoblamic acid (3) is detailed based on the inverse electron demand [4 + 2] cycloaddition reaction of 2,4,6-tris(ethoxycarbonyl)-1,3,5-triazine (5) with 1-bis(benzylamino)-1-propyne or in situ generated 1,1-diaminopropene for the one-step preparation of an appropriately functionalized pyrimidine nucleus. The incorporation of 3 into synthetic deglyco desacetamidobleomycin A2 (4) and the pr comparison of the functional cleavage of duplex DNA by Fe(II)-4 are described. Fe(II)-4 proved to be 0.3-0.2x as effective as Fe(II)-deglycobleomycin A2 in its efficiency of cleavage of supercoiled phi-X174 RFI DNA.