Translation Inhibition by Phosphorothioate Oligodeoxynucleotides in Cell-Free Systems

Abstract

A detailed comparison was made of the concentration dependence of translation inhibition by phosphorothioate and phosphodiester oligodeoxynucleotides of the same anti-beta-globin sequence in cell-free systems using beta-globin mRNA and unrelated mRNAs as controls. The results confirm that at low concentrations the phosphorothioate oligomer is more potent as an antisense compound, while at higher concentration (greater than 4 microM) it exhibits more nonspecific inhibition than the phosphodiester oligomer for RNase H-mediated translation inhibition.