Marker of Local Conformation of Oligonucleotides

The knowledge of the local conformational structure and behaviour of DNA fragments in interaction with biological reactants at a molecular level is necessary to understand their activity. Not any physical technique enables one to observe straight a physical characteristic of the local conformation. The essential distinction between the conformers lies in the sugar pucker, C3’_endo (or N) and C2’. endo (or S) (fig. 1), which is revealed in Raman and IR spectra by the stretching mode vC-D of a selectively deuterated carbon of the ribose ring.