Modulating the activity of oligonucleotides by carbohydrate conjugation: solid phase synthesis of sucrose-oligonucleotide hybrids

In order to expand the repertoire of available oligosaccharide-oligonucleotide hybrids, the on-line solid phase synthesis of oligonucleotides conjugated at the 3′- and/or 5′-end with a preformed disaccharide unit has been performed. The key compound in the synthetic scheme described here is an appropriate phosphoramidite derivative of fully protected sucrose, used in association with a solid support functionalized with DMT-protected sucrose. The sucrose units at both ends of selected oligonucleotide sequences were shown to increase their chemical and enzymatic stability, while not interfering with duplex formation and with the ability of G-rich sequences to adopt a quadruplex structure.