RNA structure and function
Edited by:
- Robert W. Simons &
- Marianne Grunberg-Manago
. Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 10 Skyline Drive, Plainview, New York, USA; 1998, 726 pages. $145.00.
An RNA can form stable structures with only a small number of nucleotides. For example, a dozen nucleotides are sufficient to form a stable hairpin loop under physiological conditions. The more complex secondary structural motifs — bulged loops, internal loops and so forth — involve only a few nucleotides more. A tertiary structure such as that of the hammerhead ribozyme can be constructed with as few as ∼40 nucleotides, and that of a transfer RNA requires only ∼70 nucleotides. On the basis of this information alone, an RNA of more >100 nucleotides is expected to contain several structures, some of which may be stable and some of which may form only transiently. To make a protein of 100 amino acids, a messenger RNA must be longer than 300 nucleotides, and it is therefore not surprising that nature takes advantage of the enormous structure-forming potential of RNA. What we know today about RNA structure may be only the tip of an iceberg.
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