Synthesis of nucleic-acid base containing norbornene derivatives as monomers for ring-opening-metathesis-polymerization

A series of norbornene derivatives containing nucleic-acid bases (thymine, adenine, cytosine, guanine, or uracil) have been prepared as monomers for ring-opening-metathesis-polymerization (ROMP). Many of the initially prepared monomers had poor solubility but this could be overcome by appropriate choice of a linker between the norbornene and base units. Some of the monomers were successfully polymerised to give homopolymers derived from nucleic-acid bases.