Nucleic acid-polymer conjugates are afforded by click reactions of appropriately functionalized oligonucleotides with synthetic polymer chains of different chemical nature, composition, and properties.

1. Nucleic acid-polymer conjugates are afforded by click reactions of appropriately functionalized
oligonucleotides with synthetic polymer chains of different chemical nature, composition, and
properties. With expertise in bioconjugation, BOC Sciences has developed various strategies to
offer tailor-made nucleic acid-polymer conjugation, protein-polymer conjugation,
peptide-polymer conjugation, viruses-polymer conjugation, enzymes-polymer conjugation,
liposome-polymer conjugation and carbohydrate-polymer conjugation services to our
institutional and industrial customers.
Introduction of Nucleic Acid-polymer Conjugates
The nucleic acids polymer conjugates can be bioactive in different forms (i.e., DNAzymes,
aptamers, siRNA, etc.), thus imparting both structural and functional features for designing
sophisticated biohybrid materials. The self-assembly of DNA strands is partly due to the
intermolecular formation of H-bonds between the complementary purine (adenine and guanine)
and pyrimidine (thymine and cytosine) bases of nucleic acids, which are attached to the
phosphate sugar backbones. Mechanistically, adenine (A) selectively binds to thymine (T),
whereas guanine (G) selectively binds to cytosine (C); thus, synthetic polymers bearing
nucleobases (A, T, G, or C) should also exhibit interesting supramolecular self-assembly or
self-sorting properties. Although many chemical and bioengineering techniques have been
established for the site-specific labeling of DNA and RNA with functional small molecules, current
approaches for polymer conjugating to nucleic acids mainly proceed at the terminus of
oligonucleotide sequences, resulting in nucleic acid-containing block copolymers.
Nucleic Acid-polymer Conjugates Progress in Materials Science. 2017, 88: 136-185.
Superior organization properties can be obtained when conjugating synthetic polymers with
oligonucleotides. In comparison to the previous approaches, the supramolecular organization is
not due to a random nucleobase recognition but instead to the cooperative association of
sequence-defined oligomers. Moreover, the complementary self-assembly of oligonucleotides
can be achieved in water because oligonucleotides possess the optimized backbone structure of
natural nucleic acids. For example, the hydrophobic synthetic polymers and hydrophilic
oligonucleotide fragments can constitute block copolymer amphiphiles, and such amphiphilic
bioconjugates can prepare aqueous micelles capable of forming superstructures via co-assembly
with materials (e.g., inorganic nanoparticles) exhibiting complementary oligonucleotides.
Furthermore, bioconjugates of polymers and oligonucleotides can also be exploited for
constructing microbiology or biotechnology materials such as DNA micro-arrays that are useful
for diagnostic assays. Currently, oligonucleotides have already been conjugated to a wide variety
of synthetic polymers, including polypyrrole, polynorbornene, poly(maleic anhydride-alt-vinyl
ether), poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone-co-N-acryloxysuccinimide),
poly(N-(2,2-dimethox-yethyl)-N-methacrylamide), and
poly(N-acryloylmorpholine-co-N-acryloxysuccinimide).
Applications of Nucleic Acid-polymer Conjugates
Nanomaterials. The attachment of polymers to DNA sequences typically enhances the stability of
DNA within the biological system, acting as a vehicle to cross cellular membranes and/or as a

2. combinatorial platform for multimodal medical applications. They are widely applied in
therapeutics, precision materials, nanorobots, ultrasensitive sensors, and molecular computers.
Nucleic Acid-polymer Conjugates 2
Biomedical Science. Recent advances in the nucleic acid-polymer area attempt to integrate
multiple functions (i.e., stimulus and temporal control, targeting, etc.) onto the polymeric
scaffold and enhance nucleic acid molecules' bioactivity and pharmacological properties,
especially for drug delivery and cellular imaging.
Optoelectronic Devices. Nucleic acid-polymers can use DNA interactions to enhance
polymer-derived functions. DNA-templated optoelectronic nanodevices fabrication has become a
promising research area for many potential applications, such as fluorescence and
optoelectronics.
Our Services for Nucleic Acid-polymer Conjugates
Nucleic Acid-templated Synthesis of Polymers
The fabrication of multifunctional nucleic acid-conducting polymer nanocomposites using DNA as
a template can improve the properties of conducting polymers and has become an attractive
application in nanotechnology. As an authoritative expert in polymer bioconjugation, BOC
Sciences leads into a synthetic strategy for conducting polymer nanocomposites using mainly
nucleic acids as soft templates. Our conductive polymers for nucleic acid bioconjugations include
but are not limited to polyacetylene (PA), polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), polythiophene
(PTh), poly(para-phenylene) (PPP), poly(phenylene vinylene) (PPV), and polyfuran (PF).
Nucleic Acid-templated Nanomaterial Synthesis
Nucleic acids are significantly used as bio-templates to control the growth of versatile
nanomaterials because their carbonyl and amine moieties on the nucleobases can coordinate
with metal ions, while the overhanging phosphate backbones can prevent irreversible
aggregation of nanoparticles. Additionally, DNA/RNA nanotechnology can provide specific
alignment of surface-modified nanoparticles to produce well-defined 1D, 2D, or 3D nano
architectures, utilizing the molecular recognition property of nucleic acid. BOC Sciences is
committed to developing precision polymer nanostructures for nucleic acids, nucleotides, and
nucleobases. Our one-stop synthesis technology includes RNA-templated synthesis of
nanoparticles and DNA-templated synthesis of nanoparticles.
Nucleic Acid-Polymer Hybrid
Nucleic acid-polymer hybrids have captured a stunning position and attracted incredible scientific
and technological interest due to the facile procedure involving physical mixing guided by
non-covalent interaction. Conducting polymer-DNA hybrids has versatile applications, including
sensing of DNA hybridization, low potential flow detection of nucleic acid, etc. In addition to
providing customized services for conductive polymer-DNA conjugation, BOC Sciences also offers
dendronized polymer-DNA conjugation services, which may find utility in nonviral gene delivery.