Understanding the local conformations of DNA at the level of individual nucleic acid bases is important for the study of the mechanism of DNA sequence-dependent behavior. Here we apply linear absorption, circular dichroism (CD), and fluorescence spectroscopy to study the DNA local base conformation using 6-methyl Isoxanthopterin (6-MI) labeled DNA. We interpret excitation–emission peak shift (EES) measurements of the 6-MI, both as a ribonucleotide monophosphate in solution and as a site-specific substituent for guanine in various DNA constructs, by implementing a simple two-state model. We show that the spectroscopic properties of the 6-MI probe in DNA can be used to obtain detailed information about local base conformations and conformational heterogeneity and fluctuations. Based on these findings, we apply a simple theoretical model to calculate CD of 6-MI substituted DNA constructs. We find that our model can be used to extract basesequence- dependent information about the local conformation of the 6-MI probe as modulated by the local base or base-pair environment. We next apply 6-MI to probe the ligand insertion of small molecules to duplex DNA, further extending the potential of 6- MI as a useful reporter of local nucleic acid base conformation. These studies served to establish a new level of sophistication in qualitatively analyzing 6-MI structural behavior in terms of local base stacking and unstacking conformations. v This dissertation contains previously published and unpublished co-authored material.