Maximum expected accuracy structural neighbors of an RNA secondary structure

Since RNA molecules regulate genes and control alternative splicing by allostery, it is important to develop algorithms to predict RNA conformational switches. Some tools, such as paRNAss, RNAshapes and RNAbor, can be used to predict potential conformational switches; nevertheless, no existent tool can detect general (i.e., not family specific) entire riboswitches (both aptamer and expression platform) with accuracy. Thus, the development of additional algorithms to detect conformational switches seems important, especially since the difference in free energy between the two metastable secondary structures may be as large as 15-20 kcal/mol. It has recently emerged that RNA secondary structure can be more accurately predicted by computing the maximum expected accuracy (MEA) structure, rather than the minimum free energy (MFE) structure.

 

Source code for RNAborMEA can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/rnabormea/ or http://bioinformatics.bc.edu/clotelab/RNAborMEA/

microRNAs quantitative assay with Splinted Ligation

Do you still use Northern Blot to quantitate microRNAs expression? Here I recommend Splinted Ligation Assay[1,2], though this method is an old story (published in 2007).   Detection of miRNAs using splinted ligation. Schematic depiction of the assay process. As described in the text, the assay involves: (1) Labeling of the ligation oligonucleotide; (2) concurrent … Read more

Uploaded and Uploading to SynBio world

Synthetic Biology, an emerging interdisciplinary field, is building up a bridge to get biologists and engineers collaborated widely, science and technology merged tightly, dreams and reality synchronized fully. There are countless fascinating projects and ideas in SynBio world which are supposed to have great implication to our real world and of course, one cannot depict … Read more