An efficient unnatural base pair for a base-pair-expanded transcription system.

For the site-specific incorporation of artificial components into RNA by transcription, an efficient, unnatural base pair between 2-amino-6-(2-thiazolyl)purine (denoted as v) and 2-oxo(1H)pyridine (denoted as y) was developed. The substrates of y and 5-substituted y were site-specifically incorporated into RNA by T7 RNA polymerase opposite v in templates. The efficiency and fidelity of the v-y pairing in transcription were as high as those of the natural A-T(U) and G-C pairings. Furthermore, RNAs containing two adjacent y bases were also transcribed from DNA templates containing two v bases. This specific transcription allows the large-scale preparation of artificial RNAs and can be combined with other systems to simultaneously incorporate several different components into a transcript.