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PNAs: from birth to adulthood
Submonomeric strategy
Coupling with
the submonomer
Fmoc deprotection
Coupling with
the carboxymethil base
PNA completed by
standard SPPS Boc synthesis
Figure 1-11: Submonomeric strategy used to avoid racemization during the coupling of a chiral PNA
monomer
1.8 PNA Applications
Since their invention, it has been clear that the outstanding properties of PNAs could turn
these molecules into powerful tools for life scientists, in all the fields where the selective
recognition of complementary sequence is required, like biomedical or diagnostic
applications.
When used as drugs, PNAs can be exploited to target DNA or RNA. Pharmaceutical
applications that require DNA targeting have usually the purpose to block the replication of a
gene related with the onset of certain illness such as cancer; this approach is the so-called
antigene therapy. Alternatively, RNA can be targeted in the cytoplasm, in order to block the
expression of selected proteins; in this case, the approach is called antisense. PNAs are also
used in analytical applications, when specific sequences have to be identified, in order to
predict a risk of illness onset, or to recognize the presence of biological contamination in
complex matrices. Usually, the detection of sequences having some biological meaning is to
be performed in a fast and selective way.
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