Synthesis and cellular uptake of cell delivering PNA–peptide conjugates

The synthesis and cellular uptake of fluorescently labelled PNA–peptide conjugates is described; Dde/Mmt protected PNA monomers, fully orthogonal to Fmoc chemistry, were used to develop a flexible strategy to give Peptide Nucleic Acids conjugated to tri- and hepta-arginine and the short basic Tat48–57 peptide as examples of cellular penetrating peptides, thereby allowing efficient cellular delivery of PNA into cells.