Finally, we analyzed some technical aspects of genomic trees-e. g., comparing parsimony versus distance-based approaches and examining the effects of increasing numbers of organisms. Additional information (e. g. clickable trees) is available from http://bioinfo.mbb.yale.edu/genome/trees.”
“The expression Vorasidenib of genes,

both coding and noncoding, can be significantly influenced by RNA structural features of their corresponding transcripts. There is by now mounting experimental and some theoretical evidence that structure formation in vivo starts during transcription and that this cotranscriptional folding determines the functional RNA structural features that are being formed. Several decades of research in bioinformatics have resulted in a wide range of computational methods for predicting RNA secondary structures. Almost all state-of-the-art methods in terms of prediction accuracy, however, completely ignore the process of structure formation and focus exclusively on the final RNA structure. This review hopes to bridge this gap. We summarize the existing

evidence for cotranscriptional folding and then review the different, currently used strategies for RNA secondary-structure prediction. Finally, we propose a range of ideas on how state-of-the-art methods could be potentially improved by explicitly capturing the process of cotranscriptional structure formation.”
“Pseudouridine (Psi) is the selleck kinase inhibitor most common noncanonical nucleotide present in naturally occurring RNA and serves a variety of roles in the cell, typically appearing where structural stability is crucial to function.. residues are isomerized from native uridine residues by a class of highly conserved enzymes known as pseudouridine synthases. In order to quantify the thermodynamic impact of pseudouridylation on U-A base pairs, 24 oligoribonucleotides, 16 internal and eight terminal all Psi-A oligoribonucleotides, were thermodynamically characterized

via optical melting experiments. The thermodynamic parameters derived from two-state fits were used to generate linearly independent parameters for use in secondary structure prediction algorithms using the nearest-neighbor model. On average, internally pseudouridylated duplexes were 1.7 kcal/mol more stable than their U-A counterparts, and terminally pseudouridylated duplexes were 1.0 kcal/mol more stable than their U-A equivalents. Due to the fact that Psi-A pairs maintain the same Watson-Crick hydrogen bonding capabilities as the parent U-A pair in A-form RNA, the difference in stability due to pseudouridylation was attributed to two possible sources: the novel hydrogen bonding capabilities of the newly relocated imino group as well as the novel stacking interactions afforded by the electronic configuration of the. residue.