2 methoxy 6 chloro 9 pentylaminoacridine n 6 chloro 2 methoxyacridinyl o methoxydiisopropylaminophosphinyl 3 aminopropanol and n 6 chloro 2 methoxyacridinyl o methoxydiisopropylaminophosphinyl 5 aminopentanol other suitable acridine derivatives are readily apparent to persons skilled in the art additionally as used herein 34 p 0 0 substituted acridine 34 means a phosphate covalently linked to a substituted acridine formula i compounds also may include ribozyme sequences inserted into their nucleotide sequence the ribozyme sequences are inserted into formula i compounds such that they are immediately preceded by auc uuc gua guu guc or preferably cuc the ribozyme sequence is any sequence which can be inserted and causes self cleavage of messenger rna the sequence cug aug agu ccg uga cga a is preferred other such sequences can be prepared as described by haseloff and gerlach nature aug 18 1988 334 585 591 the compounds of formula i have about 12 to 30 nucleotides as used herein the term 34 nucleotides 34 includes nucleotides in which the phosphate moiety is replaced by phosphorothioate or alkylphosphonate and the nucleotides may be substituted by substituted acridines preferred formula i compounds have 13 to 22 nucleotides more preferred are compounds having 16 to 20 nucleotides most preferred are compounds having 18 nucleotides compounds having fewer than 12 nucleotides are less desirable because they generally have less specificity and compounds having greater than 30 nucleotides are less desirable because they generally are not sufficiently soluble in aqueous media and thus are less likely to enter cells although formula i compounds that are antisense to human il 1 receptor dna are preferred formula i includes nucleotide compounds which lack a complement for each nucleotide in a.