Chemical syntheses of inhibitory substrates of the RNA-RNA ligation reaction catalyzed by the hairpin ribozyme.

The chemical syntheses of RNA oligomers containing modifications on the 5'-carbon of the 5'-terminal nucleoside for crystallographic and mechanistic studies of the hairpin ribozyme are reported. Phosphoramidites 4 and 8 were prepared and used in solid phase syntheses of RNA oligomers containing the sequence 5'-N'UCCUCUCC, where N' indicates either 5'-chloro-5'-deoxyguanosine or 5'-amino-5'-deoxyguanosine, respectively. A ribozyme ligation assay with the 5'-chloro- and 5'-amino-modified RNA oligomers demonstrated their inhibition of the hairpin-catalyzed RNA-RNA ligation reaction.