Recognition of homo-polynucleotides containing adenine by a phenanthridinium bis-uracil conjugate in aqueous media

Among novel bis-nucleobase–phenanthridinium conjugates bis-uracil analogue 2 stabilized significantly more effective poly-dA–poly-dT and poly-AH+–poly-AH+ than adenine analogue 3 and reference compound 1. For the alternating poly-dAdT–poly-dAdT however, the binding preference is lost, pointing to the importance of specific interactions of uracils of 2 with homopolynucleotides containing consecutive adenines.