Hexitol nucleic acids (HNAs) are DNA analogues that contain the standard nucleoside bases attachedto a phosphorylated 1,5-anhydrohexitol backbone. We find that HNAs support efficient information transferin nonenzymatic template-directed reactions. HNA heterosequences appeared to be superior to the correspondingDNA heterosequences in facilitating synthesis of complementary oligonucleotides from nucleoside-5‘-phosphoro-2-methyl imidazolides.
