W. Gruner et al., ANALYSIS OF RNA SEQUENCE STRUCTURE MAPS BY EXHAUSTIVE ENUMERATION .1.NEUTRAL NETWORKS, Monatshefte fuer Chemie, 127(4), 1996, pp. 355-374
Global relations between RNA sequences and secondary structures are un
derstood as mappings from sequence space into shape space. These mappi
ngs are investigated by exhaustive folding of all GC and AU sequences
with chain lengths up to 30. The computed structural data are evaluate
d through exhaustive enumeration and used as an exact reference for te
sting analytical results derived from mathematical models and sampling
based on statistical methods. Several new concepts of RNA sequence to
secondary structure mappings are investigated, among them that of neu
tral networks (being sets of sequences folding into the same structure
). Exhaustive enumeration allows to test several previously suggested
relations: the number of(minimum free energy) secondary structures as
a function of the chain length as well as the frequency distribution o
f structures at constant chain length (commonly resulting in generaliz
ed forms of Zipf's law).