Kaja Fac
Synthesis of biotin labelled cap analogue –
incorporable into mRNA transcripts and
promoting cap-dependent translation.
All eukaryotic mRNAs have at their 5’-end a unique structure called cap, which consist of unusual
7-methylguanosine linked by a 5’,5’-triphosphate bridge to the first transcribed nucleotide. In the
work, which I am going to present, a biotin-labelled dinucleotide cap analogue has been
designed and prepared.
One of the purposes was to obtain the analogue that can be incorporated into transcripts to
produce 5’-capped and biotinylated mRNA in vitro which retains its biological functionality and
allows the application for biotin-(strept)avidin interaction based experiments. Thus, the analogue
was tested for its ability to bind initiation factor eIF4E and for its recognition by streptavidin.
Moreover, the synthesized capped, full-length mRNA was tested for its translational efficiency.