Rna synthesis-phosphoramidites for synthetic rna in the reverse direction, and application in convenient introduction of ligands, chromophores and modifications of synthetic rna at the 3'-end

Abstract

Novel technology for RNA synthesis in the reverse direction, involving a new class of products, 3'-DMT-5'-CE ribonucleoside phosphoramidites and 3′-DMT-5'-succinyl ribonucleoside solid supports, with per step coupling efficiency surpassing 99% in the RNA synthesis. This leads to high purity RNA. Examples of a large number of 20-21 mers and a few examples of long chain oligonucleotides are demonstrated. The data indicates dramatic improvement in coupling efficiency per step during oligonucleotide synthesis using the reverse RNA monomers (5′→′ direction) as compared to 3′-CE ribonucleoside phosphoramidites used in the conventional method of RNA synthesis (3′→5′ direction). The new process requires shorter coupling cycle time, approx. 4 minutes as compared to approx. 10 minutes using conventional RNA synthesis method (3′→5′ direction). Furthermore, almost complete absence of M+1 impurities in the reverse RNA synthesis methodology were observed, even when the last phosphoramidite was a macromolecule. The process resulted in very high purity 3′-modified oligonucleotides after HPLC purification. As a result of high purity of synthesized RNA and clean introduction of various 3′-end modified RNA requiring long chain ligands, chromophores, fluorophores and quenchers, this method of RNA synthesis is expected to be a very useful method of choice for therapeutic grade RNA. The novel phosphoramidites of this invention, Rev-A-n-bz, Rev-C-n-bz, Rev-C-n-ac, Rev-G-n-ac and Rev-rU show HPLC purity greater than 98% andP NMR purity greater than 99.5%.