Glycol nucleic acid

[citation needed] The 2,3-dihydroxypropyl nucleoside analogues were first prepared by Ueda et al. (1971).

Soon thereafter it was shown that phosphate-linked oligomers of the analogues do in fact exhibit hypochromicity in the presence of RNA and DNA in solution (Seita et al. 1972).

[1] Crystal structures of a GNA duplexes were subsequently reported by Essen and Meggers.

The glycol unit has just three carbon atoms and still shows Watson–Crick base pairing.

It is possibly the simplest of the nucleic acids, making it a hypothetical precursor to RNA.