Group VII of the Landolt-Börnstein New Series is devoted to the physical properties of biological systems. It begins with volume VII/1 covering the nucleic acids which are of central importance in all processes in- volving gene expression. This field has become of practical consequence during the last decade through the development of genetic engineering. Because of the amount of the data available, volume VII/1 had to be divided into several subvolumes. The first two subvolumes, VII/1a and VII/1b, which appeared in 1988, deal with crystallographic and structural data which give a comprehensive information on the three-dimensional structure of the nucleic acids, their folding properties, their hydrogen bonding schemes, their metal binding capabilities, their hydration and their drug complexation. The present subvolume VII/1c covers the first part of spectroscopic, kinetic and physical data; the following subvolume VII/1d concludes this chapter and also deals with theoretical investigations.
