Artificial nucleosides possessing metal binding sites at the 3′- and 5′-positions of the deoxyribose moieties

This paper describes a convenient synthetic procedure for nucleoside mimics, 1-6, in which the 3′,5′-hydroxy groups of natural 2′-deoxythymidine or 2′-deoxyadenosine are replaced by thiol, amine, or alkylthiol groups. Such nucleosides would be built up into a single DNA strand with cooperative participation of metal coordination, where internucleoside linkages are replaced by metal complexation motifs. The X-ray crystal structure and complexation behaviors of 3′,5′-dithiothymidine, 1, with Au^I are also reported.