Synthesis and biological applications of fluoro-modified nucleic acids

Owing to the unique physical properties of a fluorine atom, incorporating fluoro-modifications into nucleic acids offers striking biophysical and biochemical features, and thus significantly extends the breadth and depth of biological applications of nucleic acids. In this review, fluoro-modified nucleic acids that have been synthesized through either solid phase synthesis or the enzymatic approach are briefly summarised, followed by a section describing their biomedical applications in nucleic acid-based therapeutics, 18F PET imaging and mechanistic studies of DNA modifying enzymes. In the last part, the utility of 19F NMR and MRI for probing the structure, dynamics and molecular interactions of fluorinated nucleic acids is reviewed.