Teaching a course on nucleic acid structure is a hazardous undertaking, especially if one has no continuous teaching obligations. I still have done it on several occasions in various French universities, when colleagues, suffering from admin­ istrative overwork and excessive teaching obligations, had asked me to do so. This was generally done with a pile of notes and a dozen slides, and I always regretted that no small, concise, specialized book on nucleic acid structure for students at the senior or beginning graduate level ex­ isted. Every year, the lecture notes became more and more voluminous, with some key reprints intermingled. Everything changed when, in the spring of 1973, I re­ ceived an invitation to teach such a course, under the UNESCO-OAS-Molecular Biology Program at the Universi­ dad de Chile in Santiago during October 1973. I had ac­ cepted rather enthusiastically, but soon discovered that it would be necessary to produce a photocopied syllabus for the students. This was the fi rst premanuscript of this book. For nonscientific reasons, the course was first canceled and then postponed until December 1973. Nearly a year later, the course, in slightly amended form, was presented at the Lemonossow-State University in Moscow.

Inhalt

1 Introduction.- 1.1 History.- 1.2 Cellular localization of nucleic acids.- 2 Methods and Techniques.- 2.1 Absorption and optical activity (ORD and CD).- 2.2 Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).- 2.3 Ultracentrifugation.- 2.4 X-ray fiber diffraction.- 3 Chemistry and Enzymology of Nucleic Acids.- 3.1 Chemistry of nucleic acids and their constituents.- 3.2 Chemical reactions of nucleic acids and their constituents.- 3.3 Isolation of nucleic acids.- 3.4 Degradation and determination of nucleic acids.- 4 Structure and Function of DNA.- 4.1 The double helix of Watson and Crick.- 4.2 Experimental tests of the Watson-Crick hypothesis.- 4.3 The role of DNA in the cellular machinery-the central dogma.- 5 Physical Chemistry of DNA-The Problems of DNA Research.- 5.1 Established facts.- 5.2 Facts that may require amendments of details of the Watson-Crick theory.- 5.3 What do we require from biologically operative DNA?.- 5.4 What do we still not know?.- 6 Model Systems for Nucleic Acids.- 6.1 Polynucleotides.- 6.2 Oligonucleotides.- 6.3 Association of monomers in solutions and crystals.- 7 Errors and Mutations.- 7.1 Chemical mutagenesis.- 7.2 Base analogues.- 7.3 Antibiotics, pigments, dyes.- 7.4 Mutagenesis by radiation (UV, X-rays).- 8 The Structure of Ribonucleic Acids.- 8.1 Protein biosynthesis.- 8.2 Transfer RNA.- 8.3 Ribosome structure and rRNA.- 8.4 Viral RNA and virus structure.- 9 Nucleic Acid-Protein Interactions.- 9.1 Polyamines.- 9.2 Polypeptides and protamines.- 9.3 Histones and chromatin.- In the Guise of an Epilogue.- Appendix: Abbreviations and Symbols for Nucleic Acids, Polynucleotides, and Their Constituents.- Suggested Bibliography for Advanced Reading.