Visible-light-mediated oxidative demethylation of N6-methyl adenines

Li-Jun Xie; Rui-Li Wang; Dong Wang; Li Liu; Liang Cheng

doi:10.1039/c7cc05544g

Visible-light-mediated oxidative demethylation of N⁶-methyl adenines

Chem Commun (Camb). 2017 Sep 26;53(77):10734-10737. doi: 10.1039/c7cc05544g.

Authors

Li-Jun Xie¹, Rui-Li Wang, Dong Wang, Li Liu, Liang Cheng

Affiliation

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Function, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. chengl@iccas.ac.cn.

PMID: 28920612
DOI: 10.1039/c7cc05544g

Abstract

We report a simple protocol that affords oxidative demethylation of N⁶-methyl groups in N⁶-methyl adenines (m⁶A). The biologically compatible photocatalyst riboflavin prompts a highly selective C-H abstraction from N⁶-methyl in adenines under the irradiation of a visible blue LED light, affording a novel and highly selective biomimetic demethylation of m⁶A and related N-methyl adenine analogues.