Intern
THE HÖBARTNER GROUP: ORGANIC AND BIOMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY

Nucleic Acid Assemblies

Nucleic acid merocyanine dimers

Exciton coupling between two or more chromophores in a specific environment is a key mechanism associated with color tuning and modulation of absorption energies. Barbituric acid merocyanine (BAM) nucleosides in synthetic nucleic acid nanostructures show exciton coupling that can be tuned by the double helix conformation. Duplexes with different backbone constitutions and geometries afford different mutual dye arrangements, leading to distinct optical signatures seen in absorption, CD and fluorescence spectroscopy.


J. Dietzsch, D. Bialas, J. Bandorf, F. Würthner, C. Höbartner
Tuning exciton coupling of merocyanine nucleoside dimers by RNA, DNA and GNA double helix conformations
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022.

J. Dietzsch,  A. Jayachandran,   S. Mueller,  C. Höbartner  and  T. Brixner 
Excitonic coupling of RNA-templated merocyanine dimer studied by higher-order transient absorption spectroscopy
Chem. Commun 202359, 7395-7398
 

Bioorthogonal dipolar recognition

Inspired by natural Watson-Crick base pairing and genetic code expansion by hydrophobic base pairing, we explore dipolar and quadrupolar stacking interactions as bioorthogonal elements for the assembly of supramolecular nucleic acid structures.

 

 


H. Neitz, I. Bessi, V. Kachler, M. Michel, C. Höbartner
Tailored Tolane-Perfluorotolane Assembly as Supramolecular Base Pair Replacement in DNA
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, e202214456 first published: November 7th.

 

Light-induced DNA crosslinking


H. Neitz, I. Bessi, J. Kuper, C. Kisker, C. Höbartner
Programmable DNA Interstrand Crosslinking by Alkene–Alkyne [2 + 2] Photocycloaddition
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023145, 9428–9433

J. Kuper, T. Hove, S. Maidl, H. Neitz, F. Sauer, M. Kempf, T. Schroeder, E. Greiter, C. Höbartner & C. Kisker
 XPD stalled on cross-linked DNA provides insight into damage verification
Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 2024, published online May 28