Oligonucleotides and polynucleotides as biologically active compounds.

Nucleic acids are involved in the most important processes occurring in living cells and possess an enormous potential for specific interactions with different biopolymers. Specificity of recognition of DNA and RNA species by complementary nucleic acids is unique in the world of biopolymers. A great number of the proteins involved in processes of replication, transcription, and translation are also capable of highly specific recognition of certain nucleotide sequences and specific structural motifs in folded nucleic acids. Therefore, nucleic acids have always attracted the attention of pharmacologists dreaming of highly specific therapeutics, i.e., magic bullets targeted to specific biopolymers. In recent years, the efforts of nucleic acid chemists have been focused on development of oligonucleotide-based biologically active compounds that