“…Several of the DNA duplexes constructed (1, Id, l e , 2, 3-3c, 4-4c, 4f, 4h, 4m, 4n) have been characterized in this respect by UV spectroscopy and by circular dichroism (Dolinnaya et al, 1988;Gromova et al, 1984;Kubareva et al, 1990Kubareva et al, , 1991Kuznetsova et al, 1987bKuznetsova et al, , 1988. Summarizing these results with the data obtained from melting, circular dichroism, NMR and the X-ray structure of double-stranded oligonucleotides differing in primary structure from the compounds used here (Table 1) but carrying analogous point modifications (Delepierre et al, 1986;Delort et al, 1985;Diekmann and McLaughlin, 1988;Dolinnaya et al, 1986;Dolinnaya and Gryaznova, 1989;Frederick et al, 1988;Hunter et al, 1986;Kremer et al, 1987;Pieters et al, 1989;Purmal et al, 1984;Snowden-Ifft and Wemmer, 1990;Wang et al, 1982), one can arrive at the following conclusions.…”