ABSTRACT

We have seen in the previous chapters why the knowledge of RNA secondary structure is important - for information processing in biology and biotechnology. In this Chapter we want to learn how to predict RNA structure. Predicting RNA structure, as we will see, has three aspects. The first aspect is combinatorial: how can we classify and compute the possible structures? The second aspects relates to the question which of these structures are selected based on their free energy: from the set of all possible structures, which is the one that is energetically the most favorable one? The third and final aspect touches upon the kinetics of the fold formation: how does the molecule actually acquire its fold?