Polynucleotides synthesis, review

Kossel, H. and Seliger, H. (1975) Recent advances in polynucleotide synthesis. Fortschritte d Chem, Org, Naturst, 32,297-508 a comprehensive review. 

C. Oligo- and Poly-nucleotides.—The stepwise enzymatic synthesis of internucleotide bonds has been reviewed. A number of polynucleotides containing modified bases have been synthesised " in the past year from nucleoside triphosphates with the aid of a polymerase enzyme, and the enzymatic synthesis of oligodeoxyribonucleotides using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase has been studied. Primer-independent polynucleotide phosphorylase from Micrococcus luteus has been attached to cellulose after the latter has been activated with cyanogen bromide. The preparation of insolubilized enzyme has enabled large quantities of synthetic polynucleotides to be made. The soluble enzyme has been used to prepare various modified polycytidylic acids. ... 

Without doubt, the solid-phase peptide synthesis (Merrifield method) remains a preferred method for controlling all five critical molecular design parameters (size, shape, topology, flexibility, and surface chemistry) by precisely producing amino-acid sequences in a stepwise fashion. The scope and limitations of this approach have been reviewed [34] and widely recognized [35]. These solid-phase syntheses with protection/deprotection procedures are used routinely to produce numerous, previously unattainable [36], polypeptides and polynucleotides. One of the ultimate synthetic efforts in the control of CMDPs was the total synthesis by Khorana et al. [37] of a DNA molecule in the 1960s. 

---