Labeling strategies for RNA/DNA
Labeling strategies for RNA/DNA¶
Nucleic acids are routinely labeled at either of the two termini using both chemical and enzymatic approaches. Internal labeling is more challenging since the chemical diversity of the four building blocks of RNA and DNA is more restricted than the amino acids in proteins. Several strategies have been developed to site-specifically targeting a nucleotide of interest [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. The various methods have been extensively reviewed [9, 10, 11] and can generally be categorized into co- and postsynthetic methods. As such, modified or pre-labeled nucleotides are incorporated into the strand during solid phase synthesis while ethenoadducts, for instance, are inserted on selected adenine or cytosine residues only after in vitro transcription (Fig. 3).
