Synthesis and Enzymatic Incorporation of a Responsive Ribonucleoside Probe That Enables Quantitative Detection of Metallo-Base Pairs

[Image: see text] Synthesis of a highly responsive fluorescent ribonucleoside analogue based on a 5-methoxybenzofuran uracil core, enzymatic incorporation of its triphosphate substrate into RNA transcripts, and its utility in the specific detection and estimation of Hg(2+)-ion-mediated metallo-base pair formation in DNA–RNA and RNA–RNA duplexes are described.