Helical supramolecular self-assembly by prolamide thymidine/uridine analogues

This report describes the syntheses of rationally designed non-sugar nucleoside as prolamide nucleosides which contain prolyl ring and pyrimidine nucleobases (uracil/thymine) via acetamide bonds. These nucleosides have propensity to form distinctive self-assembly supramolecular helical structures ubiquitously through Watson-Crick/reverse type of hydrogen bonding with nucleobases. Moreover, the prolyl acetamide backbone groups- carbonyl (-C = O) and hydroxyl (-OH) group, are also involved in strengthening of self-assembled helical structures. Importantly, both prolamide thymidine and prolamide uridine have shown two distinctive helical structural patterns, in spite of containing the same backbone. Hence thymine and uracil moieties of prolamide nucleosides are responsible for unique supramolecular helical structural architectures.