The effect of local structural disruption on the yield of photochemical ligation between anthracene-oligonucleotide conjugates.

The techniques of chemical ligation have attracted great attention as an alternative to enzymatic joining of DNA ends. Here we introduce the photoligation of anthracene-modified ODN conjugates through anthracene cyclodimer formation. The effect of the positions and the kinds of single base mismatch on the template was evaluated using eight templates with one-base displacements. We found out that the yield of the ligation was affected by mispairing in a position-dependent manner. Such results would be attributed to the disruption of the local structure at the ligation site.