page_title: Xeno nucleic acid
hierarchical_section_title: Xeno nucleic acid
caption_attribution_description: English: Comparison of T residue in glycol nucleic acid and natural DNAPolski: Porównanie struktury reszty T w glikolowym kwasie nukleinowym i w naturalnym DNA
context_page_description: Xeno nucleic acids are synthetic nucleic acid analogues that have a different sugar backbone than the natural nucleic acids DNA and RNA. As of 2011, at least six types of synthetic sugars have been shown to form nucleic acid backbones that can store and retrieve genetic information. Research is now being done to create synthetic polymerases to transform XNA. The study of its production and application has created a field known as xenobiology.
  Although the genetic information is still stored in the four canonical base pairs, natural DNA polymerases cannot read and duplicate this information. Thus the genetic information stored in XNA is "invisible" and therefore useless to natural DNA-based organisms.
context_section_description: Xeno nucleic acids (XNA) are synthetic nucleic acid analogues that have a different sugar backbone than the natural nucleic acids DNA and RNA. As of 2011, at least six types of synthetic sugars have been shown to form nucleic acid backbones that can store and retrieve genetic information. Research is now being done to create synthetic polymerases to transform XNA. The study of its production and application has created a field known as xenobiology.
  Although the genetic information is still stored in the four canonical base pairs (unlike other nucleic acid analogues), natural DNA polymerases cannot read and duplicate this information. Thus the genetic information stored in XNA is "invisible" and therefore useless to natural DNA-based organisms.
caption: Glycol nucleic acid (left) is an example of a xeno nucleic acid because it has a different backbone than DNA (right).
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