Publication

Abstract : pA new chiral ferrocene-labelled tyrosine PNA monomernbsp;1nbsp;has been synthesised in good yield in both racemic and enantiomerically pure forms. It is suitable for insertion in various positions of PNA oligomers, a possibility that has been preliminarily demonstrated by synthesising the dimernbsp;16.nbsp;Moreover, in view of possible applications to nucleic acid detection, a preliminary voltammetric investigation on the electrochemical activity of monomernbsp;1nbsp;and its synthetic precursors has been carried out in DMF. It appears that, despite the bulkiness of the PNA monomer backbone, its insertion on the ferrocene group only moderately lowers the latter’s diffusion coefficients and peak currents, thus affording voltammetric detection limits in the order of 10−6–10−7 M./p