RNA folding retrospective: lessons from ribozymes big and small
- T. C. Jenkins Department of Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
- Corresponding author: swoodson{at}jhu.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
The past 20 years have brought an explosion of structural and physical information about RNAs and their complexes. A vast network of non-coding RNA sequences are now believed to be essential for the complexity of life. It is now possible to interrogate RNA structures across an entire transcriptome, and recent experiments have turned up a dizzying array of RNA binding interactions, chemical modifications and small non-coding RNAs that fine-tune mRNA life-cycles. Yet, the need to understand and predict how RNAs take on particular structures is more urgent than ever before. This is not only to interpret the possible functions of newly discovered non-coding RNA sequences, but also to appreciate how dynamical motions and conformational switches drive catalysis and gene regulation. Of course, cellular machines must self-assemble from their components, and thus the principles of self-assembly also underlie the design of synthetic RNAs.
The discovery of catalytic RNA motivated fresh studies …
