Panagene
Bioclarma is the distributor in Italy for Panagene’s research-use-only (RUO) products, from the world leader in PNA production.
Specifically, Bioclarma provides the synthesis of PNA oligonucleotides, FISH probes for centromeric and telomeric repeat sequences, and PNA monomers.
What is PNA?
PNA (Peptide Nucleic Acid) is an innovative synthetic molecule; an artificially created DNA analogue, invented in 1991 by Professors Nielsen, Egholm, Berg, and Buchardt of the University of Copenhagen.
PNA has a structure in which the phosphate-ribose backbone of DNA is replaced by a peptide-like backbone (N-(2-aminoethyl)glycine) with a neutral charge.
Thanks to this structure, the binding affinity for target DNA or RNA and its stability are significantly increased. In a PNA/DNA or PNA/RNA hybrid, the base pairing between complementary strands is not counterbalanced by the repulsion from the negative charges of the phosphate groups, as would be the case in a DNA/DNA or DNA/RNA hybrid.
For the same reason, the binding affinity is not affected by salt concentration, unlike with DNA or RNA oligonucleotides.
The structure of PNA is completely different from that of DNA, RNA, or peptides, and as a result, PNA exhibits high stability because it is not degradable by nucleases or proteases.
Additionally, this molecule is stable at high temperatures and exhibits low sensitivity to pH variations.