Highly emissive deoxyguanosine analogue capable of direct visualization of B-Z transition

A 2-aminothieno[3,4-d] pyrimidine G-mimic deoxyribonucleoside, thdG, was synthesized and incorporated readily into oligonucleotides as a versatile fluorescent guanine analogue. We demonstrate that thdG enables the visual detection of Z-DNA successfully based on different pi-stacking of B- and Z-DNA.