Bioengineering Centre of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117312, Russia

Abstract. In this paper, a notion of “regularity” is introduced to describe the structural features of DNA sequences. This notion expands the “latent periodicity” term. A novel method for revealing regularity based on the runs test is given. The search of regular sequences in eukaryotic promoters has shown that more than 60% of them possess the regularity property on statistically significant level. Possible biological functions of regularity are discussed together with possibility of using this characteristic for making promoter annotation.

Key words: regularity, promoters, DNA sequences.