ABSTRACT
As many genetic and catalytic functions of RNA have been elucidated in recent years, most notably the RNA interference mechanism, its biological importance and ways of utilizing it to disrupt cancer or other disease pathways have been recognized. Incorporation of RNA dynamics adds another level of information to employ in the modeling and characterization of the RNA structures. In 3D terms, secondary structure folding leads to formation of helices between anti-parallel complementary fragments of the sequence. The hierarchical and modular nature of RNA structures lends itself to nano-scale structure engineering. The tetrahedral structure maintained its integrity with low levels of distortions in MD simulations, which agreed well with experimental particle size measurements and cryo-EM reconstruction.
