Cover Picture: Highly Fluorescent 5‐(5,6‐Dimethoxybenzothiazol‐2‐yl)‐2′‐Deoxyuridine 5′‐Triphosphate as an Efficient Substrate for DNA Polymerases (ChemBioChem 15/2011)

Abstract

The cover picture shows the synthesis by DNA polymerase (shown in green) of a fluorescent DNA probe containing a fluorescent nucleobase analogue, 5-(5,6-dimethoxybenzothiazol-2-yl)-2′-deoxyuridine (dbtU, shown as light blue spheres), that exhibits a very high quantum yield (0.701) and brightness (14 000) in aqueous 100 mm NaOH at 460 nm emission. Although the chemical synthesis of short oligodeoxyribonucleotides (ODNs) containing fluorescent nucleobase analogues at specific sites has been reported, the enzymatic incorporation of these fluorescent nucleobase analogues into DNA has not been substantially reported. On p. 2341 ff., A. Matsuda et al. describe the incorporation of dbtUTP (5′-triphosphate of dbtU) efficiently at the site opposite adenine in ODNs, and how dbtU was found to act not only as a triphosphate but also as a template in an identical manner to dT in its base-pairing pattern.