Prólogo

LARRAMENDY, M. L.; SOLONESKI, S.

Nucleic Acids - From Basic Aspects to Laboratory Tools

INTECH Publisher

Lugar: Rijeka; Año: 2016; p. 7 - 8

Nucleic acids, the most common of which are DNA and RNA, have a wide variety of functions in the main system of life, expression, maintenance, and so on. In the postgenomic era, when the primary structure of our genome has been fully determined, though not yet fully understood, a significant challenge for investigation is to determine not only the role of several small molecules of nucleic acids with promising functions but also the modification and employment of novel nucleoside analogues developed for biological research and medical applications. Nucleic acids are commonly used as laboratory tools for modulating gene expression and have the potential to be widely used in the fields of medicine and therapeutics. They can recognize and exhibit a much stronger affinity with their corresponding counterparts, such as DNA or RNA, to form a thermodynamically stable variable molecular structure and thus can be used in gene therapy to silence genes.