Cover Feature: Synthesis of Oligonucleotides containing the cis‐Interstrand Crosslink Produced by Mitomycins in their Reaction with DNA (Chem. Eur. J. 55/2020)

Mitomycins are important anti‐cancer drugs. Treatment of cancer cells with mitomycins generates stereoisomeric (trans and cis) DNA interstrand crosslinks (ICLs), which prevent these highly proliferating cells from replicating. trans‐Crosslinks are formed exclusively at CpG sequences, while cis‐crosslinks are formed only at GpC sequences. This work describes a synthetic methodology to generate oligonucleotides containing the cis‐ICL (green ICL in the picture). Structural proof of the crosslinked oligonucleotide was obtained, and a virtual model of the duplex was created. More information can be found in the Full Paper by E. Champeil et al. on page 12570.