Coumarin base-pair replacement as a fluorescent probe of ultrafast DNA dynamics

The design and synthesis of a novel coumarin C-riboside are described, and is based on the well-known photoprobe Coumarin 102. A diastereofacial selective Heck coupling between a furanoid glycal and a coumarin triflate provided a method for glycoside formation. The coumarin C-glycoside was incorporated synthetically into DNA oligomers, and was used to probe ultrafast dynamics of duplex DNA using time-resolved Stokes shift methods.