Enhanced hybridization by peptide nucleic acids

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are DNA analogs containing neutral amide backbone linkages. PNAs are stable to degradation by enzymes and hybridize to complementary sequences with higher affinity than analogous DNA otigomers. PNA synthesis employs protocols derived from solid-phase peptide synthesis, making the methodology straightforward and flexible, PNAs are being incorporated into an expanding set of applications, including genome mapping, identification of mutations, and evaluation of telomere length. The growth in the popularity of PNAs as a motif for nucleic acid recognition should accelerate as properties of PNAs become more familiar.