Viruses remain a great threat to human health, one in particular being the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although drugs to treat HIV exist, they are harsh and often result in negative side effects. The low fidelity replication enzymes that the virus uses to duplicate its genome contribute to the relative success of the virus’s ability to evade antiviral medications, but this can be exploited to develop new antiviral agents. This research focuses on viral mutagenesis, or the introduction of intentional errors in the genome of the virus. By increasing the error rate via genetic mutation, the DNA of the virus will reach its error threshold and ablate. The method by which error will be introduced is integration of synthesized cytosine based nucleoside analogs that have ambiguous hydrogen bonding faces resulting from tautomeric shift. These shifts will lead to the mispairing of DNA and a decrease in the stability of the duplex molecule. Presented here are the details of the designed nucleosides’ synthesis and spectroscopy and thermal stability of oligomers containing the nucleosides.

Use of cytosine-based tautomerically ambiguous nucleosides for induction of viral mutagenesis

255th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.