Interaction of water-soluble porphyrins with single- and double-stranded polyribonucleotides.

CD and uv-visible absorption studies with several tetracationic water-soluble porphyrin derivatives show that some of these species can serve as probes to discriminate between A- and B-conformational forms of single-stranded polynucleotides. It is also observed that these porphyrins can participate in the formation of double helices by forming transient intermediate complexes en-route to duplex formation.