A New Achiral Linker Reagent for the Incorporation of Multiple Amino Groups Into Oligonucleotides

The present invention relates to a new functionalized achiral linker reagent for incorporating multiple primary amino groups or reporter groups into oligonucleotides following the phosphoramidite methodology. It is possible to substitute any ribodeoxynucleotide, deoxynucleotide, or nucleotide with the linker in conventional phosphoamidite or H-phosphonate DNA syntheses. Directly, or via a post modification step, an oligonucleotide is labelled with one or more reporter moieties, e.g. dansyl (5-dimethylamino)-1-naphthalenesulfonyl), biotin, digoxigenin, DOXYL (N-oxyl-4,4-dimethyloxazolidine), PROXYL (N-oxyl-2,2,5,5-tetramethylpyrrolidine), TEMPO (N-oxyl-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine), dinitrophenyl, texas red, tetramethyl rhodamine, 7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1-diazole (NBD), or pyrene. The present invention also relates to a solid phase support, e.g. a Controlled Pore Glass (CPG), immobilized linker reagent, to a method for preparing a labelled oligonucleotide, and to the use of the labelled oligonucleotide as hybridisation probe, in polymerase chain reactions (PCR), in nucleic acid sequencing, in cloning recombinant DNA and $i(in vitro) mutagenesis.