5'-bis-pyrenylated oligonucleotides displaying excimer fluorescence provide sensitive probes of RNA sequence and structure.

Oligonucleotide conjugates bearing two pyrene residues attached to 5'-phosphate through a phosphoramide bond were synthesised. Fluorescence spectra of the conjugates show a peak typical of monomer emission (lambda(max) 382 nm) and a broad emission peak with lambda(max )476 nm, which indicates the excimer formation between the two pyrene residues. Conjugation of these two pyrene residues to the 5'-phosphate of oligonucleotides does not affect the stabilities of heteroduplexes formed by conjugates with the corresponding linear strands. A monomer fluorescence of the conjugates is considerably affected by the heteroduplex formation allowing the conjugates to be used as fluorescent hybridisation probes. The 5'-bis-pyrenylated oligonucleotides have been successfully used for investigation of affinity and kinetics of antisense oligonucleotides binding to the multidrug resistance gene 1 (PGY1/MDR1) mRNA. The changes of excimer fluorescence of the conjugates occurring during hybridisation depended on the structure of the binding sites: hybridisation to heavily structured parts of RNA resulted in quenching of the excimer fluorescence, while binding to RNA regions with a loose secondary structure was accompanied by an enhancement of the excimer fluorescence. Potentially, these conjugates may be considered as fluorescent probes for RNA structure investigation.