The main goal is to design and synthesize novel 2’-d-guanosine analogues to build G-quadruplexes of increased specificity and selectivity when compared to the naturally occurring systems. Such analogs are characterized by having an aryl group at C8 of the guanine base, which may contain a variety of functional groups. The former increases the surface area of the base potentially promoting enhance stacking and the latter increase other noncovalent interactions like H-bonds, dipole- dipole, etc. Studies are underway to fully understand the contributions of such non-covalent interactions on the thermodynamic and kinetic properties in organic media of the supramolecular species formed. Our mid- to long-term goals is to use these analogs we intend to use them as recognition motifs for the construction of supramolecular nanostructures of greater complexity with applications in materials science and nanotechnology.
