FREQUENTLY ASKED TECHNICAL QUESTION
QUESTION: Can oligonucleotides modified at the 5'-terminus with, for example, biotin be phosphorylated with kinase?
RESPONSE:Modification reagents based on a 1,2-diol, e.g., BioTEG, DNP phosphoramidites, or a 1,3-diol, e.g., fluorescein, biotin phosphoramidites, can be added several times at the 5'-terminus since they contain an alcohol group capable of further addition with phosphoramidites. Can this alcohol also be as a substrate for T4 polynucleotide kinase for 32P labelling of these modified oligonucleotides? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Teoule and coworkers have shown(1) that oligos labelled at the 5'-terminus are substrates for kinase. Interestingly, the oligos modified with reagents based on 1,2-diols are labelled to 50%, indicating that only one diastereomer is labelled, while those modified with 1,3-diol reagents are labelled to 100%.
REFERENCE(S):
(1) M.L. Fontanel, H. Bazin, and R. Teoule, Analytical Biochemistry, 1993, 214, 338-340.
QUESTION: When quantifying a fluorescein labelled oligonucleotide by measuring absorbance at 260nm, what effect does the fluorescein have on this measurement?
RESPONSE:The extinction coefficient of DNA at 260nm is around 10,000/mole/base or 10/µmole/base. We use fluorescein isothiocyanate (Isomer 1) in the preparation of our fluorescein phosphoramidite (10-1963). The extinction coefficient of fluorescein (measured as FITC) at 260nm is around 13,700/mole or 13.7/µmole. The fluorescein contribution to the absorbance of a fluorescein labelled oligonucleotide at 260nm is, therefore, about the same as 1 base or about 5% of a 20mer. This may be neglected or corrected for in the determination of the amount of labelled oligonucleotide from an A260 measurement.
Note: dA=15.4, dC=7.4, dG=11.5, T=8.7
Fl-labeled ligos: 480nm excitation, 520nm emmission.
The extinction coefficient for fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate at 495 nm is 76,000 L/mole-cm at pH 9. Upon conjugation to protein, and by analogy oligo's, the extinction coefficient is decreased by 10%. This would result in a extinction coefficient of approximately 68,000 L/mole-cm. Additionally the extinction coefficient, and fluorescence emission, is very pH dependent (maximum at pH 9).
REFERENCE(S):
M. Powell, Glen Research
QUESTION: What are the relative extinction coefficients of 5'-Fluorescein, Hex and Tet etc.. at 260 nm and their Lambda max?
RESPONSE:Please see http://www.glenresearch.com/Technical/Extinctions.html
REFERENCE(S):
Oligonucleotide Properties Calculator; http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/biotools/oligocalc.html
QUESTION: Can oligonucleotides modified at the 5'-terminus with, for example, biotin be phosphorylated with kinase?
RESPONSE:Modification reagents based on a 1,2-diol, e.g., BioTEG, DNP phosphoramidites, or a 1,3-diol, e.g., fluorescein, biotin phosphoramidites, can be added several times at the 5'-terminus since they contain an alcohol group capable of further addition with phosphoramidites. Can this alcohol also be as a substrate for T4 polynucleotide kinase for 32P labelling of these modified oligonucleotides? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Teoule and coworkers have shown(1) that oligos labelled at the 5'-terminus are substrates for kinase. Interestingly, the oligos modified with reagents based on 1,2-diols are labelled to 50%, indicating that only one diastereomer is labelled, while those modified with 1,3-diol reagents are labelled to 100%.
REFERENCE(S):
(1) M.L. Fontanel, H. Bazin, and R. Teoule, Analytical Biochemistry, 1993, 214, 338-340.
QUESTION: What are the relative extinction coefficients of various dyes?
RESPONSE:Please see http://www.glenres.com/Technical/Extinctions.html#dyes
QUESTION: Does AMA or methylamine cause any degradation to fluorescein or fluorescein-type dyes such as FAM or FITC?
RESPONSE:Response: While AMA (Ammonium hydroxide/40% Methylamine 1:1 v/v) is considered compatible with fluorescein, the use of methylamine when deprotecting a Fluorescein-labeled oligo does lead to a small amount of degradation, which is characterized by a the appearance of a late-eluting peak by RP HPLC that shows no visible fluorescein absorbance. With standard deprotection conditions (AMA 10 minutes at 65 C) the amount of degradation is approximately 5%. The impurity is not detected with AMA at RT for 2 hours.
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